I’ve always considered myself somewhat of a history buff, and I have always liked to study the military, but I’ve never really checked out ancient military history until recently. It did not seem relevant to me, to tell you the truth. I was more interested in the evolution of the modern world, and I couldn’t see how ancient history would have anything to do with that. One of my friends is a classical studies major, and he convinced me to take another look at it. What I found really surprised and fascinated me.
The fact is that ancient military history is still studied in many cadet schools to this day. Nowadays, with high-tech weaponry, it is easy to get lost in technological fetishism and forget how an army works. With ancient military history, you see much more continuity. To this very day, the high ground is the most valuable place on the battlefield. To this very day, strategy can win or lose a battle. And to this very day, a small difference in arms technology can make a big difference in results.
With ancient military history, battles and even wars between civilizations would sometimes be decided by a single technology. Iron could easily overcome bronze, for example, and the long bow could render many traditional troop formations worthless. A great example of a technology in ancient military history is the phalanx. Once the Romans developed the phalanx, they were all but unstoppable. Projectile weapons of the time couldn’t smash through their wall of shields, and basically they could present a united cluster of spear tips and an invincible target. Although they could be somewhat vulnerable to flanking movements, the Roman generals were good at countering this threat. It just shows you how important coordinated movement is for a successful army.
One of the most important developments in ancient military history was that of siege engines. It actually took quite a while before good projectiles could be used against an encroaching army. A wall of shields is a powerful defense, but once you learned how to throw great big rock into a block of troops, you have the advantage. The interesting thing about advances in short range projectiles and siege engines is that they caused defenses in medieval military history to get bulkier and more powerful. Armor got thicker, castle walls got thicker, and even shields got thicker. Up until gunpowder, there was a continuous arms race between defenses and things meant to batter through them.
I would definitely say that gunpowder was the end of ancient military history and the beginning of the modern age. Although it had been around for a while, once it was successfully weaponized you couldn’t really effectively protect your troops through thick sheets of metal anymore. People had to rethink strategy.
