TELEVISION
About
Hollywood has gone to elaborate lengths to recreate the violence and mayhem of ancient warfare in media. But what were ancient battles really like? What weapons, tactics, armor, training, and logistics were used? In this course, Professor Garrett G. Fagan
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Episodes
1. Why Study Battles? What Is War?
32m
Professor Garrett G. Fagan addresses the importance of studying battles and surveys the changing scholarly approach to the subject since the 19th century. He concludes by looking at different definitions of warfare, particularly the "operational" and "social-constructivist" models.
2. The Problem of Warfare's Origins
31m
Three types of evidence shed light on origins of warfare: human remains bearing evidence of trauma, artifacts that function primarily as weapons, and monuments such as fortifications or depictions of warriors painted on cave walls. Their interpretations are far from straightforward.
3. Sumer, Akkad, and Early Mesopotamian Warfare
31m
You enter the historical era when written records first become available. Such evidence allows us to reconstruct the conventions and conditions of warfare among the first cities in Sumer in c. 3000 BC and to explore the nature of Sumerian armies, weapons, and battle tactics.
4. Egyptian Warfare From the Old to New Kingdoms
31m
Evidence of warfare in Old Kingdom Egypt is ambiguous, but it is much more plentiful in later periods, when the pharaoh's role was increasingly that of a war leader. Egyptian warfare was transformed by the introduction of the chariot.
5. The Battles of Megiddo and Kadesh
30m
With New Kingdom Egypt, you get the first fully recorded battle in history: the Battle of Megiddo. You also cover the later Battle of Kadesh, which is attested in both Egyptian and Hittite accounts.
6. The Trojan War and Homeric Warfare
31m
The reality of the Trojan War has been debated since ancient times. In this episode, survey the archaeological evidence for Troy and for warfare among the mainland Greeks, called Mycenaeans.
7. The Assyrian War Machine
31m
The Assyrian military model of multiethnic, highly mobile armies relying on missile weaponry and chariots was to characterize major Near Eastern powers for centuries. You study the nature of the Assyrian army, the unique features of the empire it created, and the place of warfare in Assyrian imperial ideology.
8. The Sieges of Lachish and Jerusalem
31m
Examine the art of ancient siege warfare by considering the two great sieges at Lachish and Jerusalem during the third campaign of Sennacherib (701 BC). The sources for these events include Assyrian written and iconographic records, accounts in the Bible, and archaeology.
9. A Peculiar Institution? Hoplite Warfare
32m
The Greek hoplite was a heavily armed and armored infantryman who fought in a formation called the phalanx, dominating battlefields of the ancient world for almost four centuries (c. 700 to 338 BCE).
10. The Battle of Marathon
30m
The Battle of Marathon saw the forces of the Persian superpower defeated in the first major confrontation between Greeks and Persians on the Hellenic mainland. The battle itself was strategically indecisive and set the stage for the serious clash of Greek and Persian armies a decade later.
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