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Thread: Βattles of Thermopylae New battle description added

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    Default Βattles of Thermopylae New battle description added

    Kala Xristougena se olous sas

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    Battle of Thermopylae (353 BC)


    The 353 BC Battle of Thermopylae occurred after the defeat at the Battle of Crocus Field left Phocis with a greatly reduced army. While King Philip II of Macedon was preparing to attack at Thermopylae, Onomarchus's brother Phayllus took command and began the defense. Phayllus managed to keep Philip out with a heroic stand. Phalaecus succeeded Phocis but stood little chance of turning the war around in the face of the fatal alliance of King Philip and Thebes.

    Against Gauls 279 BC
    Brennus (or Brennos) (d. 279 BC) was one of the leaders of the army of Gallic invasion of the Balkans, defeated the assembled Greeks at Thermopylae, and is popularly reputed to have sacked and looted Delphi, although the ancient sources do not support this.
    In 280 BC a great army, comprising about 85,000 warriors[1], coming from Pannonia and split in three divisions, marched south[2] in a great expedition[3] to Macedonia and central Greece. The division led by Brennus and Acichorius moved against Paionians.
    Some writers suppose that Brennus and Acichorius are the same person, the former being only a title and the latter the real name.[4][5]
    The other two divisions were led by Cerethrius and by Bolgios, moving against the Thracians and Triballi, and against the Macedonians and Illyrians, respectively.[6]
    Brennus is said to have belonged to an otherwise unknown tribe called the Prausi.[7] These Gauls had settled in Pannonia because of population increases in Gaul, and sought further conquests.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennus_(3rd_century_BC)



    Battle of Thermopylae (191 BC)


    The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 191 BC between a Roman army led by consul Manius Acilius Glabrio and a Seleucid force led by King Antiochus III the Great. The Romans were victorious, and as a result, Antiochus was forced to flee Greece.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae_(191_BC)


    Battle of Thermopylae (267)ac


    The Battle of Thermopylae in 267 was the unsuccessful defense of the pass by local forces during the great invasion of the Balkans by the Heruli.
    The Heruls are first mentioned by Roman writers in the reign of Gallienus (260-268), when they accompanied the Goths ravaging the coasts of the Black Sea and the Aegean. The mixed warbands managed to sack Byzantium in 267, but their eastern contingent was virtually annihilated in the Balkans at the Battle of Naissus (Serbia) two years later, the battle that earned Marcus Aurelius Claudius his surname "Gothicus."






    Battle of Alamana (1821)


    Omer Vryonis, the commander of the Turkish army, advanced with 8,000 men from Thessaly to crush the revolt that had broken out in Peloponnesos. Athanasios Diakos, Panourgias Panourgias and Yiannis Dyovouniotis with their bands of armatoloi (a total of perhaps 1,500 men) took up defensive positions at the river Alamana (Spercheios), near Thermopylae.
    Vryonis' attack forced Panourgias and Dyovouniotis to retreat, leaving Diakos alone. Diakos's men fought for several hours before they were overwhelmed.




    Battle of Thermopylae (1941)



    The Battle of Thermopylae during World War II occurred in 1941 following the retreat from the Olympus and Servia passes. British Commonwealth forces began to set up defensive position at the historic pass at Thermopylae. (Thermopylae is famous for the Battle of Thermopylae under King Leonidas who fought with 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians to the death against a gigantic Persian army in 480 BC.) General Bernard Freyberg was given the task of defending the coastal pass with Mackay defending the village of Brallos. In the New Zealand sector, the 5th Brigade was deployed along the coastal road, the foothills south of Lamia, and the Spercheios River. The 4th Brigade was on the right where it had established coast-watching patrols, and the 6th was in reserve. In the Australian sector, the 19th Brigade, comprising the 2/4th and 2/8th Battalions, defended Brallos. On 19 April the 2/1st and 2/5th Battalions were placed under the command of Maj Gen George Vasey, and that day and during the early hours of the next, 2/11th Battalion rejoined the brigade. Generals Freyberg and Mackay had been informing their subordinates that there would be no more withdrawals, both unaware of the higher level discussions on the evacuation. After the battle Mackay was quoted as saying.[1]
    “ I thought that we'd hang on for about a fortnight and be beaten by weight of numbers[1] ” When the order to retreat was received on the morning of the 23rd it was decided that each of the two positions was to be held by one brigade each. These brigades, the Australian 19th and 6th New Zealand were to hold the passes as long as possible, allowing the other units to withdraw. General Vasey, commander of the 19th Brigade said:
    “ Here we bloody well are and here we bloody well stay[1] ” This was interpreted by his brigade major as the "Brigade will hold its present defensive positions come what may".[1] The Germans attacked on 24 April, met fierce resistance, lost fifteen tanks and sustained considerable casualties. The Australians and New Zealanders held out the entire day. With the delaying action accomplished, they retreated in the direction of the evacuation beaches and set up another rearguard at Thebes.[2]




    And a try in 1204
    In the autumn of 1204, as the Crusaders under Boniface of Montferrat marched into Thessaly and headed south, Sgouros withdrew before the superior Crusader army. Initially he planned to make a stand in the pass of the Thermopylae
    Last edited by jo the greek; December 29, 2009 at 07:50 AM.

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    Default Re: Βattles of Thermopylae

    Very good but... don't you miss one that was fought there against Persians?
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    Default Re: Βattles of Thermopylae

    Yeah the thermopylae of today looks a lot different than it did in each of those battles. Or at least I've heard that somewhere. Perhaps the History channel, but that thing is full of garbage anyway so one can't really know what to believe.

    Great, informative post! I was always interested in teh Roman 191 BC battle of Thermopylae.

    The WWII one, I was not even aware of.

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    Default Re: Βattles of Thermopylae

    No persian one?

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    Default Re: Βattles of Thermopylae

    Geography changes with years

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    Default Re: Βattles of Thermopylae

    I feel kind of stupid in hindsight for saying that.

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    Default Re: Βattles of Thermopylae ΝΕW description added

    The invasion of the Gauls I



    Just when the situation in the hellenistic empires seemed to be stabilized, the Galatians invaded Greece. The deepest cause was the collapse of the kingdom that had once been Lysimachus': when this king was killed in 281, the tribes in the buffer zone in the north sided with the barbarous Galatians, who now found the way to the south open. These Galatians belonged to the La Tène-culture, which is often called 'Celtic'. The story is told by Pausanias (Guide for Greece 10.19.4-23.9); his source may or may not be Hieronymus of Cardia. The translation was made by Peter Levi.


    I wanted to bring out the story of the Celtic invasion more clearly in my account of Delphi, because this was where the Greeks did most against them. The Celts made their first expedition under the command of Cambaules; they got as far as Thrace, but despaired of the way ahead as they realized there were only a few of them and they were no match for the Greeks in terms of numbers.[1]
    When they decided a second time to carry arms against foreign countries (driven most of all by veterans of Cambaules' campaign who had tasted piracy and fallen in love with the loot and rape of the world), they came in a mass of infantry and a very considerable throng of cavalry as well. The commanders divided the army into three parts, each to advance into a different country.
    Cerethrius was to lead against the Thracians and Triballians [2],
    while Brennus [3] and Acichorius commanded the advance into Paeonia; Bolgius marched against the Macedonians and Illyrians and undertook a struggle with Ptolemy, who at that time was king of Macedonia. (This was the Ptolemy who treacherously murdered Seleucus son of Antiochus after taking refuge under his protection, and was called the 'Thunderbolt' for his utter daring.) Ptolemy himself died in the battle [4] and there was a sizable massacre of Macedonians, but even then the Celts did not have the confidence to advance against Greece; and so the second expedition returned home.
    But Brennus was a powerful influence on their general councils and individually on all the men in authority, calling for a campaign against Greece, and pointing out the weakness of the Greeks at that time, their great public wealth, and the even greater wealth in the sanctuaries in dedications and in coined silver and gold. He persuaded the Gauls to march on Greece, and among the fellow-commanders he chose from the great men of Gaul was Acichorius.
    The 'dying Gaul' (Musei Capitolini, Roma; ©**)
    The army that gathered was a 152,000 infantrymen and 20,400 horsemen: that was the number of the cavalry always in action, but the real number was 61,200, as there were two grooms to each horseman, all mounted and good riders. When the Gaulish cavalry were in battle, the grooms would stay behind the ranks and make themselves useful with new mounts when a horse or rider fell, but when a man was killed the slave would mount the horse in place of his master. If man and horse both died he was ready mounted. When they were wounded, one of the slaves took away the wounded man to camp, while another stepped into the line in his place. [...] In their own language they called this division trimarkisia; you should realize marka is the Celtic word for 'horse'. This was the armament and this was the resolution with which Brennus marched on Greece.

    Greek spirit had sunk right down, but the power of fear forced them to realize that Greece must fight. They saw that this struggle was not about freedom as it once was against Persia; it was not going to be enough now to offer earth and water [5]. What had happened to Macedonia, to Thrace, to Paeonia, in the previous onslaught of the Gauls, was still in their memory, and news came of. the outrages that were now being committed in Thessaly. Every man as an individual and every city collectively had realized that the Greeks must overcome or be destroyed. [...] Here is the number of Greeks who appeared at Thermopylae [6] against the barbarous tribes of the Atlantic ocean.

    • 10,000 men at arms and 500 cavalry from the Boeotians, under the captains of Boeotia: Cephisodotus, Thearidas, Diogenes, and Lysander;
    • 500 horsemen from Phocis and infantry amounting to 3000, under Critobulus and Antiochus;
    • 700 Locrians from the island of Atalante under Meidias, with no cavalry;
    • 400 regimental soldiers from Megara,
    • and an Aetolian contingent on the largest scale of any, with the number of cavalry unrecorded, 790 light infantry and more than 7000 regimental soldiers, under Polyarchus, Polyphron and Lacrates;
    • the Athenian commander was Callippus (as I explained earlier) with a force of all the serviceable warships, 500 cavalry and a 1000 in the infantry, and her ancient prestige gave Athens pride of place.
    • The kings [Antigonus Gonatas and Antiochus I Soter] sent mercenaries, 500 from Macedonia and as many again from Asia; Antigonus' officer was Aristodemus of Macedonia, and Antiochus' officer who also commanded the Asians and the Syrians from the Orontes was Telesarchus.

    When the Greeks had assembled at Thermopylae and discovered that the Gaulish army was already in Magnesia and Phthiotis, they decided to send out their cavalry with a thousand light infantry to the Spercheius [7], and not to let the barbarians cross the river in security without a fight. They broke down the bridges and encamped on the riverbank. But Brennus was not so barbarous as to be completely unsophisticated or wholly inexperienced in the contrivances of war. As soon as darkness fell, Brennus picked 10,000 Gauls who could swim or had more than average height (and to start with Celts are the tallest people in the world) and sent them not to the ancient crossing-places, but lower down where the Greeks would not know they were crossing, to where the Spercheius broadens out over level ground, forming a marshy lake instead of a narrow, violent current. So they got across under cover of darkness by swimming the marshy part of the river, using the oblong shields of their country like rafts, and the tallest ones simply wading across. When, the Greeks at the Spercheius discovered that a party of barbarians had crossed the marsh they retreated into the main camp.
    Brennus gave orders to the people of the Malian gulf to bridge the Spercheius, and they finished the job with an enthusiasm born of terror and of a longing to see the barbarians safely off their territory. Brennus took his army across the bridge and turned on Heraclia [8]; the Gauls plundered the countryside and murdered the people they caught out in the fields but failed to capture the city: the year before this the Aetolians had forced Heraclia into the Aetolian League, and now they defended it as a city that belonged as much to them as it did to its own people.
    But Brennus did not care so much bout Heraclia; he was struggling to drive the enemy that faced him out of the passes and to reach the rest of Greece beyond Thermopylae. He advanced from Heraclia, knowing from deserters what men from each city had gathered at the Gates [9], and in contempt of these Greeks he opened a battle as the sun rose the next morning; even supposing the Celts have some art of divination of their own, Brennus had no Greek soothsayer and made no concession to local religious observance. The Greeks advanced in silence and in order, and engaged hand to hand without the infantry breaking rank even enough to disturb their fighting formations, and with light infantry holding position, shooting, slinging, and throwing javelins. Cavalry was no use on either side because the Gates are a narrow pass, and the ground is broken and slippery, a continuous series of streams among rocky outcrops.
    The Gaulish equipment was weaker, as the traditional oblong shields they carried were all the protection their bodies had; in military experience they fell even further behind. They rushed at their adversaries like wild beasts, full of rage and temperament, with no kind of reasoning at all; they were chopped down with axes and swords but the blind fury never left them while there was breath in their bodies; even with arrows and javelins sticking through them they were carried on by sheer spirit while their life lasted. Some of them even pulled the spears they were hit by out of their wounds and threw them or stabbed with them.
    Meanwhile the Athenians on the warships with some difficulty and danger sailed in through the mud-banks that stretch far out to sea, and held their ships close inshore, bombarding the flanks with all kinds of arrows and weapons. The Celts were indescribably tired, and being in a narrow place they had little effect while they suffered two or three times as much, so their commanders gave them the signal to retreat to camp. As they turned away in broken ranks and no kind of order, many of them were trampled under each other's feet, and many went into the swamp and disappeared in the mud; as many of them perished in the retreat as died in the height of battle.
    On that day the Athenians showed the greatest courage in Greece, and the bravest of them was Cydias, a young man in battle for the first time. The Gauls killed him, and his kinsmen dedicated his shield to Zeus of Freedom, with this inscription.
    The shield of a brave man, Zeus' offering,
    pining away for the youth of Cydias:
    the first shield his left arm ever put on,
    hen raging War went hottest at the Gauls.
    This was the inscription in the days before Sulla's men took away the shields from the colonnade of Zeus of Freedom among the loot of Athens [10]. And now at Thermopylae after the battle the Greeks buried their dead and stripped the barbarians, but the Gauls sent no herald for the taking up of their dead, not caring whether they were buried or fed wild animals and the birds who make war on corpses. This neglect of giving graves to those who had passed away was for two reasons I think: to astound their enemies, and because they have no natural pity for the dead. Forty Greeks died in the battle, but it was impossible to discover the exact number of barbarians, since a large number of them vanished into the mud. A week after the battle a commando of Gauls tried to get up on to Mount Oeta by way of Heraclia, where a narrow path leads as far as the ruins of Trachis [11]; in those days there was a sanctuary of Athena above Trachis, with statues in it. They hoped to climb up to Mount Oeta by this path, and while they were at it to collect what the sanctuary yielded [lacuna] garrison [lacuna] Telesarchus. They defeated the barbarians in battle, but Telesarchus fell fighting: he was devoted to Greece, if ever a man was.





    To part two




    Note 1:
    This happened in the spring of 279. Note 2:
    The Triballians were a tribe to the north of Macedonia.
    Note 3:
    It is possible that brennus means something like 'duke'.
    Note 4:
    In 279. He had murdered Seleucus in 281.
    Note 5:
    In the war against the Persians (which culminated in the years 480-479, when king Xerxes invaded Greece), offering earth and water had been sufficient as signs of submission. Xerxes did not loot his own subjects.
    Note 6:
    A narrow road between mountains and sea, where a small army could prevent a large army from entering Greece.
    Note 7:
    A river near Thermopylae.
    Note 8:
    The last town before Thermopylae.
    Note 9:
    Thermopylae means 'hot gates'.
    Note 10:
    The Roman general Sulla captured Athens in 86 BCE.
    Note 11:
    Seen from Thermopylae, Mount Oeta lies beyond Heraclia. Trachis was deserted when Heraclia was founded.

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    Default Re: Βattles of Thermopylae New battle description added

    Battle of Thermopylae (191 BC)
    Antiochus vs Romans

    [§17]
    The Romans crossed hastily from Brundusium to Apollonia with the forces that were then ready, being 2000 horse, 20,000 foot, and a few elephants, under the command of Manius Acilius Glabrio. They marched to Thessaly and relieved the besieged cities. They expelled the enemy's garrisons from the towns of the Athamanes and made a prisoner of that Philip of Megalopolis who was still expecting the throne of Macedonia. They also captured about 3,000 of the soldiers of Antiochus. While Manius was doing these things, Philip made a descent upon Athamania and brought the whole of it under subjection, king Amynander fleeing to Ambracia.
    When Antiochus learned these facts, he was terrified by the rush of events and by the suddenness of the change of fortune, and he now perceived the wisdom of Hannibal's advice. He sent messenger after messenger to Asia to hasten the coming of Polyxenidas. Then from all sides he drew in what forces he had. These amounted to 10,000 foot and 500 horse of his own, besides some allies, with which he occupied Thermopylae in order to put this difficult pass between himself and the enemy while waiting for the arrival of his army from Asia.
    The passage at Thermopylae is long and narrow, flanked on the one side by a rough and inhospitable sea and on the other by a deep and impassable morass. It is overhung by two mountain peaks, one called Tichius and the other Callidromus. The place also contains some hot springs, whence comes the name Thermopylae, "hot gates".



    [§18] There Antiochus built a double wall on which he placed engines. He sent Aetolian troops to occupy the summits of the mountains to prevent anybody from coming around secretly by way of the hill called Atropos, as Xerxes had come upon the Spartans under Leonidas, the mountain paths at that time being unguarded [2]. One thousand Aetolians occupied each mountain. The remainder encamped by themselves near the city of Heraclea. When Manius saw the enemy's preparations he gave the signal for battle on the morrow and ordered two of his tribunes, Marcus [Porcius] Cato and Lucius Valerius, to select such forces as they pleased and to go around the mountains by night and drive the Aetolians from the heights as best they could. Lucius was repulsed from Mount Tichius by the Aetolians, who at that place fought well, but Cato, who moved against Mount Callidromus, fell upon the enemy while they were still asleep, about the last watch. Nevertheless there was a stiff fight here, as he was obliged to climb over high rocks and precipices in the face of an opposing enemy.
    Meantime Manius was leading his army against Antiochus' front in straight lines, as this was the only way possible in the narrow pass. The king placed his light-armed troops and peltasts in front of the phalanx, and drew up the phalanx itself in front of the camp, with the archers and slingers on the right hand next to the foot-hills, and the elephants, with the guard that always accompanied them, on the left near the sea.[3]



    [§19] Battle being joined, the light-armed troops assailed Manius first, rushing in from all sides. He received their onset bravely, first yielding and then advancing and driving them back. The phalanx opened and let the light-armed men pass through. It then closed and pushed forward, the long pikes set densely together in order of battle, with which the Macedonians from the time of Alexander and Philip have struck terror into enemies who have not dared to encounter the thick array of long pikes presented to them. At this juncture the Aetolians were seen fleeing from Callidromus with loud cries, and leaping down into the camp of Antiochus. At first neither side knew what had happened, and there was confusion among both in their uncertainty but when Cato made his appearance pursuing the Aetolians with shouts of victory and was already close above the camp of Antiochus, the king's forces, who had been hearing for some time back fearful accounts of the Roman style of fighting, and who knew that they themselves had been enervated by idleness and luxury all winter, took fright.
    Not knowing how large Cato's force was, it was magnified to their minds by terror. Fearing for the safety of their camp they fled to it in disorder, with the intention of defending it against the enemy. But the Romans were close at their heels and entered the camp with them. Then there was another flight of the Antiocheans as disorderly as the first. Manius pursued them as far as Scarphia, killing and taking prisoners. Returning thence he plundered the king's camp, and by merely showing himself drove out the Aetolians who had broken into the Roman camp during his absence.



    [§20] The Romans lost about 200 in the battle and the pursuit; Antiochus about 10,000, including prisoners. The king himself, at the first sign of defeat, fled precipitately with 500 horse as far as Elateia, and from Elateia to Chalcis, and thence to Ephesus with his bride Euboea, as he called her, with his ships; but not all of them, for the Roman admiral made an attack upon some that were bringing supplies, and sunk them. When the people of Rome heard of this victory, so swiftly and easily gained, they offered sacrifice, being satisfied with their first trial of the formidable reputation of Antiochus. To Philip, in return for his services as an ally, they sent his son Demetrius, who was still a hostage in their hands.

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