42
BEFORE 1000 CE
Pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt defeats the Hittite Empire at the battle of Kadesh in
this reproduction of a relief of the Ramesseum temple.
3KADESH
SECOND SYRIAN CAMPAIGN
OF RAMESES II
1274
BCE
■
MODERN-DAY SYRIA
■
EGYPT VS. HITTITE EMPIRE
In 1274 BCE, the Egyptian pharaoh
Rameses II advanced his army into
Syria, intending to stem the growing
inuence of Hittites and to seize
the strategic town of Kadesh from
them. Deceived by false information
from Hittite deserters, the Egyptians
made a premature advance with
only part of their forces, and
unexpectedly encountered the
40,000-strong Hittite army led
by King Muwatallis II. The Hittite
chariots, heavier than those of
the Egyptians, scattered their
outnumbered opponents.
The Hittites plundered the
Egyptian camp, while the latter
regrouped. The remaining Egyptian
army then arrived and launched
a counterattack that drove the
Hittites from the eld. Both sides
claimed victory, but the battle was
a stalemate. Neither Egyptians nor
Hittites secured dominance over
Syria, a situation recognized 15 years
later by a treaty made at Kadesh—
the earliest peace treaty whose
text survives.
CHAERONEA
MACEDONIAN CONQUEST
OF GREECE
338
BCE
■
CENTRAL GREECE
■
COALITION OF GREEK CITY-STATES
VS. MACEDONIA
By 338 BCE, the growing ambitions
of Philip II of Macedon to make
his kingdom the dominant power
in Greece had forced the rival city-
states of Athens and Thebes to form
an alliance against him. At Chaeronea,
north of Thebes, the Macedonian
army of around 30,000 infantry
and 2,000 cavalry met an allied
force only slightly superior in
number. The Macedonians lured
the Athenians forward, forcing
a gap between them and the
Thebans. Philip’s son, Alexander,
then led a cavalry charge through
the gap and attacked the rear
of the Theban forces. Meanwhile
the Macedonians counterattacked
the Athenians, using the longer
Macedonian spear (sarissa) to
overwhelm their enemies. Although
the Theban Sacred Band of 300
men fought to the death, the rest
of their army ed. Macedonian
victory was complete and Philip II
soon put an end to the independence
of the Greek city-states.
4ZAMA
SECOND PUNIC WAR
202
BCE
■
MODERN-DAY TUNISIA
■
ROMANS VS. CARTHAGINIANS
The second of three wars fought
between Rome and Carthage (the Punic
Wars) ended with the battle of Zama in
202
BCE. A substantial Roman force had
landed in North Africa in 203
BCE, forcing
Hannibal to return from his campaign in
Italy. With only 12,000 veteran troops
remaining, he had to recruit thousands
of untrained soldiers, who marched
toward Zama, 80 miles (130 km)
southwest of Carthage, to intercept the
Romans and their Numidian allies. Both
sides had 40,000 men, and although
Roman cavalry was superior, the
Carthaginians had 80 war elephants.
Under Hannibal’s orders the elephants
charged the enemy line, but the Roman
soldiers simply moved aside to let them
through. The Numidian cavalry then
drove the Carthaginian cavalry o the
eld, while the Roman infantry steadily
pushed back enemy soldiers. With
20,000 soldiers dead, the Carthaginians
were forced to surrender, bringing the
Second Punic War to an end.
PHARSALUS
CAESAR’S CIVIL WAR
48
BCE
■
CENTRAL GREECE
■
FORCES OF
POMPEY VS. FORCES OF JULIUS CAESAR
Having failed to defeat his former ally
Pompey at Dyrrachium, Julius Caesar
retreated with his army into Greece,
pursued by Pompey’s army as far as
Pharsalus. Pompey’s army had superior
numbers yet Pompey feared his
inexperienced infantry would struggle
against Caesar’s veterans. He shielded
his infantry by a river, and sent his
cavalry against what he thought was
Caesar’s inadequate cavalry vanguard.
In fact Caesar had placed his best legion
there, reinforced by light infantry who
sent a hail of missiles against their
attackers. Pompey’s cavalry ed, and
when Caesar sent in additional forces
the Pompeian army collapsed: 15,000
were killed and 24,000 taken prisoner.
Pompey escaped to Egypt, but was
murdered on the command of Pharaoh
Ptolemy XIII. By 45
BCE, Caesar was
master of the Roman world.
TEUTOBURG FOREST
ROMAN–GERMANIC WARS
9
CE
■
MODERN-DAY GERMANY
■
ROMAN EMPIRE VS. GERMANIC TRIBES
By 9 BCE, the Romans occupied large
areas of Germany east of the Rhine.
When a revolt broke out in the Balkans,
the governor, Publius Quinctilius Varus,
was left with only three legions to
garrison these regions. Arminius, a
Cherusci chieftain, convinced Varus
that an uprising was being plotted
and led him, along with 20,000 Roman
troops, into the German forest. In
reality Arminius was the revolt’s
ringleader and his German tribesman
harried the legionary column,
killing stragglers. The Romans,
powerless to pursue them in the
dense undergrowth, then discovered
their route had been blocked by the
Germans. The trapped Romans were
overwhelmed by a mass of tribesman.
Varus committed suicide, and most of
his men were slaughtered. Although
there were subsequent expeditions to
Germany, the Roman frontier became
xed back at the Rhine.
AL-QADISIYYAH
MUSLIM CONQUEST OF PERSIA
636
CE
■
MODERN-DAY IRAQ
■
SASSANID PERSIAN EMPIRE VS.
RASHIDUN CALIPHATE
The Sassanid Persian Empire
(224–651
CE), once a leading world
power, had been weakened by a long
conict with the Byzantine Empire
and by a subsequent civil war. When
Muslim Arab armies invaded from Arabia
in 633
CE, they easily overran much
of Persian-ruled Iraq. Then in 634
CE, the
new Persian shah Yazdegerd III brokered
an alliance with the Byzantine emperor
to counterattack the Arabs. However,
the Byzantine army was defeated at
Yarmouk (see p.43), and the Persians
were left to face the Arab force alone at
al-Qadisiyyah. The Persians had 60,000
Directory: Before 1000
CE
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DIRECTORY
◼
BEFORE 1000 CE
troops, double the Muslims’ numbers, as
well as war elephants, but the Muslim
Arab army held out for three days of
bitter ghting. On the fourth day the
Persian general was killed, after which
their army collapsed. The Muslim armies
advanced farther into Persian territory,
and by 651
CE they had completed the
conquest of the Persian Empire.
YARMOUK
MUSLIM CONQUEST OF SYRIA/
ARAB–BYZANTINE WARS
636
CE
■
MIDDLE EAST
■
BYZANTINE
EMPIRE VS. RASHIDUN CALIPHATE
In 634–35 CE, Muslim Arab armies sent
by Caliph Umar invaded Byzantine
territory, conquering Damascus and
threatening southern Palestine, as well
as Aleppo and Antioch. The Byzantine
emperor Heraclius allied with the
Persian shah Yazdegerd III, but their
eorts to coordinate an attack against
the Arabs failed, and the Byzantines
launched an oensive in May 636
CE
without their Persian allies. The Muslim
forces had been divided into four armies
and when they united, the Byzantines
were forced into battle at Yarmouk, on
Syria’s bleak Hauran lava plain. The
Byzantine army was weakened by six
days of ghting, and on the nal day a
Muslim cavalry charge broke the
Byzantines, forcing them toward the
bridge over a gorge blocked by Muslim
forces, where many were slaughtered.
With the main Byzantine eld army
destroyed, Syria and Palestine fell
rapidly to the Muslim Arab army, which
captured Jerusalem in April 637
CE.
BAEKGANG
BAEKJE–TANG WAR
663
CE
■
MODERN-DAY SOUTH KOREA
■
YAMATO JAPAN AND BAEKJE VS. CHINA
AND SILLA
In the early 660s CE, the Korean state
of Silla allied with the Chinese Tang
dynasty to attack the rival Korean
kingdoms of Baekje and Goguryeo.
The Tang-Silla alliance invaded Baekje
in the southwest of the peninsula
and captured the capital. The Baekje
resistance appealed for help from the
Japanese Yamato dynasty. In 661
CE a
large Japanese eet arrived at Baekgang
on the Geum river to bolster the Baekje
resistance forces, but the narrowness of
the river allowed the Tang-Silla eet to
defend against the attacks of the
Japanese. Finally the Tang-Silla were
able to counterattack, enveloping the
Japanese anks and trapping their ships,
which could not maneuver to escape.
Around 400 Japanese ships were lost
and the remaining Baekje strongholds
soon fell. Silla then launched an attack
on Goguryeo, capturing its capital in
668
CE and unifying the Korean
peninsula under Silla rule.
TALAS
MUSLIM CONQUEST OF
TRANSOXIANA
751
CE
■
NORTHWESTERN KYRGYZSTAN
■
ARAB ABBASID CALIPHATE AND TIBETAN
EMPIRE VS. CHINA
By the 650s CE, the Tang Chinese
had recaptured many regions of
Central Asia that had been lost when
the Han dynasty collapsed in 221
CE.
Although garrisoning them strained
Tang resources, the Chinese continued
to push westward through Ferghana.
In 751
CE, the Chinese army and their
Karluk allies encountered an Arab force
sent by the newly installed Abbasid
caliphate to enforce loyalty on the
border regions of the Islamic world.
The two sides clashed at the Talas river,
north of Tashkent, but when the Karluk
defected to the Abbasids, the Tang were
left outnumbered and isolated, and
barely a few thousand troops escaped.
The defeat severely dented Chinese
ambitions to expand their Central Asian
territories and a revolt in China in 755
CE
led to the withdrawal of remaining
Chinese garrisons. The Abbasid
caliphate expanded into Fergana and
neighboring regions, bringing large
areas into the Islamic sphere.
EDINGTON
VIKING INVASIONS OF ENGLAND
878
CE
■
SOUTHERN ENGLAND
■
DANISH VIKINGS VS. WESSEX
In the spring of 878 CE, Alfred the Great’s
kingdom of Wessex stood alone against
a large army of invading Danish Vikings
that had arrived in England in 865
CE
and conquered every other Anglo-Saxon
kingdom. Following a surprise Viking
attack in January, Alfred spent months in
hiding in Somerset’s Athelney marshes,
before summoning a local army (the
fyrd) to ght for their land. Thousands
came, and at Ethandun in Wiltshire, the
Anglo-Saxons formed up in a shield
wall bristling with spears. They fought
the Vikings in a full-day battle until
the latter ed back to Chippenham.
Two weeks later, the Viking army
surrendered. Their leader, Guthrum,
converted to Christianity and made a
treaty with Alfred dividing England into
two zones: the south and west ruled by
Wessex, and the north and east (the
Danelaw) under Viking control.
BACH DANG
SECOND SOUTHERN
HAN-ANNAM WAR
938
CE
■
EASTERN VIETNAM
■
VIETNAM VS. CHINA
In the 930s CE, Vietnam began to
assert its independence after more
than 1,000 years of Chinese domination.
Liu Yan, the Southern Han emperor,
sent a eet to sail up the Bach Dang
River and land an army in the heart
of rebel-held territory. Led by general
Ngo Quyen, the outnumbered
Vietnamese planted sharpened
wooden stakes in the riverbed that
reached below the water level at
high tide. When the tide began to
ebb the Vietnamese sent boats into the
river, provoking an attack by the Chinese
eet. As the water level dropped many
Chinese ships became stuck on the
stakes or sank, and the Vietnamese
killed more than half of the Chinese
force. Liu Yan withdrew his remaining
forces from northern Vietnam, enabling
Ngo Quyen to crush the opposition and
declare himself ruler of an independent
Vietnamese kingdom.
This 16th-century painting shows the Roman army defeating Hannibal at the Battle of Zama.
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