Battle Of Salamis In Ancient Greece

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HE FOLLOWING PERIOD WAS THE CLASSICAL AGE OF GREECE, WHICH BEGAN IN CIRCA 479 BCE AFTER THE CONCLUSION OF THE FAILED PERSIAN CONQUEST OF GREECE DURING THE SECOND PERSIAN INVASION OF GREECE. The Greeks had repelled this successfully, winning such major battles as the large naval Battle of Salamis and the large land Battle of Plataea in which the Persians lost many times more men and ships than the Greeks. The Greeks also had such memorable losses as at Thermopylae and and the accompanying naval Battle of Artemisia in which their fleet destroyed up to twice as many Persian ships as the Greeks lost and the Spartan led Greek land force killed as many as 20,000 Persians for the loss of 300 Spartans, a Spartan King and around three thousand other …show more content…
As was briefly stated, the Greeks used a form of land warfare called hoplite phalanx warfare, as their main form of fighting on land. This developed over time from circa 800 to 650 BCE during the early Archaic Age and developed from the earlier Mycenaean Greek form of warfare mentioned before. The wealthy or more well off Greek male citizens in most city-states or states, would train from the age of around 17 as hoplites, as would all the other personnel of the military from all classes of society, all of whom were expected to fight whenever the state was at war (from 17 years to around 50 years of age). One of the very few exceptions to this was the Spartans, who equipped every one of their male citizens as hoplites and used their helot slaves who supported the economy, as light troops when needed, with all the expenses paid for by the government of the state. The Spartan hoplites were trained from the age of 5 as soldiers and were adept in every style of fighting the Greeks knew, and were taught every bit of military knowledge the Greeks had. They were only considered ready to be full Spartan citizen hoplites by the age of 20 when they had finished their absolutely rigorous training, from which up to half of all the males who participated died before …show more content…
Light armed troops would usually be peltasts, a soldier carrying a straight short sword or spathos, and three or so javelins, along with a simple wooden shield for protection. Some men in the army would be archers. These men had no armour and were armed with a powerful composite bow and a quill full of arrows, as well as a short sword for self defence in the case of hand to hand fighting. The hoplites of the army would form up in phalanxes, which were tightly packed formations anywhere from eight to sixteen men deep or sometimes more, and hundreds or thousands across. The first two rows of men would project their spears to the front towards the enemy, with the back rows angling their spears upwards into the air in order to help protect from, and deflect, enemy missiles. Each hoplite would present his shield towards the enemy with the left part of his shield protecting the right side of his comrade to the left, and the left side of the shield of his comrade to the right protecting his right side. So the hoplites worked together to protect each other using a sort of interlocking system of shields. Thus the hoplite at the far right of the phalanx would have no comrade to the right to shield
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