Warriors of Ancient Greece

Book excerpt: The cradle of western civilisation, the ancient Greek world, was made up of a series of independent city states some of which, such as Athens and Sparta, grew to become major world powers. The subject of this book is Greek warfare in the Classical Period, which stretches from the Greek victories over the Persian Empire to the death of Alexander the Great at the end of the 4th century, with the authoritative text by Nicholas Sekunda focusing primarily on providing as full an account as possible of Greek military dress during this period. The names of some of the battles (Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis) have become synonyms for fortitude and courage.