Armies and Tactics: Ancient Greek Siege Warfare
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- Опубликовано: 29 авг 2024
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We are continuing our series on the Ancient Greek Warfare with a video on the siege technologies of the Greeks prior to the reforms of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. This video covers the siege engines used during the sieges and the defenses employed.
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We are grateful to our patrons and sponsors, who made this video possible: docs.google.co...
The video was made by our friend Cogito, a very talented animator/illustrator Benjin Pratt created some of the assets used in this video, while the research was done by an aspiring historian Andreas Kokkinoftas.
This video was narrated by Officially Devin ( / @offydgg & / @gameworldnarratives )
Machinimas for the video made on the Total War: Rome 2 Engine by Malay Archer ( / mathemedicupdates )
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It is my birthday. :-) So... consider sharing any of our videos with your friends. :-)
Kings and Generals Happy birthday! Its been excellent working with you so far :)
Thank you very much, my friend! :-)
Many happy returns!!!
Happy Birthday!
Bro happy birthday and thank you so much for making these awesome videos.
1. Get an army
2. Surround the city
3. Make seige engines
4. For more information consult kings and generals and not some pleb like me on the internet.
Instructions unclear, envoy sent didn't die.
Instructions unclear, Roman Empire restored
I don't understand, did you want me to build a wall around the army?
I am Greek and I didn't know how that technology worked thank you for enlightening us and learning us stuff our school books don't mention!
Glad you enjoyed it! :-)
I did an episode on one of the most impressive mathematician / engineer / mad scientist of the ancient world - Archimedes. His defense of Syracuse during the second Punic War was legendary! Catapults / rolling boulders - his famous claw to capsize ships and even his fabled ‘death ray’ - he made Syracuse not just a fortress - but a fully operational battle station!
The death ray is an impractical myth.
It seems like Dionysius I did his fair share of siege inventing too. Syracuse what an interesting place!
During the siege, the death of Archimedes was also much legendary(if you know what I mean).
which episode?
Episode VII
Who would win? Some of the most sophisticated fortifications built by Greece's finest minds. Or a bunch of lithobois.
Not gonna lie, expected better from you. :-)
Your first mistake was expecting something good from me.
@@CogitoEdu I think you mean lithobolos...?
@@NobleKorhedron boi u succ
I don't have time to bother with trolls, @@hannibalburgers477; consider yourself blocked.
The flamethrower looks sick
Gimme a Break it's also cut content in Rome 2 total war
i have a siege to do tomorrow . this video helped a lot may mars protect us.
Go get them!
eKo HaMZa dont kill their emmisaries
Umar Ansari Somebody should have told this to the Tyrians. You do not mess up with 35.000 Greeks.
CEREAL KILLER you talking about 332 BC
Yes Alexander massacred around 8000 civilians of city after he captured it and enslaved 30000 more
Ah yes. Ancient Greece. The original border gore.
Still is man haha
Alright I have a serious question. It’s actually been bugging me for a while. How would the engineers know how tall to make the siege towers? Did they just look at the walls and guess? I’d imagine it would be kind of shit if they made them too tall or too short, and the army couldn’t get into the city.
That is a good question, actually. Never thought about that, will need to think/research. :-) Let me favorite this comment, maybe someone already knows the answer - yes, I am lazy. :-)
Kings and Generals Going out on a limb here, but if you know bowshot range distance and the angle of elevation, could you then arrive at the height? www.calctool.org/CALC/math/trigonometry/height
Or maybe you use shadows? mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/55316.html
I imagine that intelligent inventors and philosophers such as Archimedes and Pythagoras could calculate such dimensions with ease.
Yea Pythagoras probably had a theorem or two handy at all times.
If I am not mistaken the Ancient Greeks were pretty aware of Trig so by measuring the shadow cast by the wall over the time of day you could feasably calculate the size of the opponents walls.
Interesting how the inhabitants of Syracuse have a real knack for inventing both offensive and defensive siege equipment. With both Archimedes and Dionysius being native inhabitants of the city.
Well, think about it as a Greek stronghold always surrounded by the enemies. They needed that.
Ah i saw Greek siege warfare and was expecting to see the fabled siege battle in Tyre by Alexander the Great. Nevertheless your channel is my favorite. Excellent work!!!
Thank you very much! Alexander will be covered in future. For now, we ended the series on the Greek Warfare prior to Philip's reforms.
spread the love brothher
The new intro reminds me of games in the early 2000s. Nostalgia's addicting.
Yep, I guess, we grew up playing the same games. :-)
Happy birthday :)
Thank you very much! :-)
Fahad Al Mandil i have seen you as Patreon on my favourites of History channel
Huge respect for you
Happy Birthday! I have a lot of respect for you, because you cover history with so much detail and most importantly, you are "unbiased". Thank you!
Thank you very much, appreciate it! :-)
This is one of my favourite series on this channel!!! Great work as always and happy birthday!!!!!!!
Thank you very much! Good luck with your channel, we need more hockey stuff on youtube. :-)
Thanks for the support man!! Would you be interested in watching one or two videos? (not obligated of course)
I am currently watching the latest. :-)
Thanks so much!!! Really appreciate it. By the way, I have a friend named Micahistory who really loves your channel too and has been trying to get you to respond to him but you don't see his comments. Could you please check his channel out too??
ruclips.net/channel/UCW5qXP-71qDZxLY4984X1Bg
I seriously love waking up to these videos...all so well made and always makes my day a little brighter
Thank you for watching :)
Amazing work as always! Never boring and the visual work is top notch. Devin can read the obituaries and Id listen but you gents brought this part of History back to life at least one more time!
Thank you, good sir! :-)
Wow I knew we created the first napalm but I didn’t know we had the first flame thrower!!! I love your series man! And happy birthday!
Thank you very much!
I swear, you guys just improve with every video. Definitely surpassed what I first expected.
Glad to hear that! :-)
Can you do an episode of Spartan King Brasidas and all of his adventures through Thrace to the battle of Amphipolis? It would be very interesting, thanks
Shaun McDonald Brasidas was only an officer
Damn, these greek engineer is awesome.
I hope you cover roman engineering too
Planning to!
Another great job. I think it is very interesting how siege warfare was not a choice, but rather a necessity, as it has been the case for guerrilla armies. The creation of strong walls to protect cities pushed invaders to seek new innovations in technology and tactics, causing them to be more adept in this form of warfare. Yet, the defender also grew more skilled if they could obtain multiple victories against enemy nations, as was the case for most of Tyre's situation prior to Alexander the Great's conquest.
Indeed, there was a matter of escalation. It seems that prior to the addition of the walls, the Greeks rarely if ever sacked the other Greek cities. Siege warfare is probably one of the most violent types of war, there is always hunger, diseases and the eventual sacking.
When you guys posts new videos, it always makes me happy :D
Thank you for watching :)
Least we should also not forget that the most advanced torsion techniques were from the Chinese and the Greeks for inventing the Semi-Auto Crossbows called the Chu Ko Nu and the Giant Ballista, without these inventions we cannot conceptualize the arts of sieges, bombardments, and defenses.
It would also be much more interesting if you also covered the Chinese Siege warfare during the Warring States period.
If you want to learn a lot about the Greek philosophy of war, you should read "Western way of war" from Victor David Hanson. This book will teach you so many things ! :D
VDH is no longer as well-regarded as a Greek military historian as he used to be. His understanding of how a hoplite battle would work is pretty far off the mark, since the first two ranks were not "wiped out".
It would have been easier if the greeks would have been using magic torches to burn down enemy gates...
No one told them. :-)
Kings and Generals i wounder what would happen is you would be alive at that time
Umar Ansari Dying from disease probably
Julius Green immune to diesease
Julius Green they would've not gotten diseases if they built a fountain!
Awesome video! Happy Birthday! To the consistent uploads 🥂
Thank you, my friend! :-)
Agree
Had no time recently to watch your videos, but this is great. You guys are doing an amazing job, i hope you'll keep on going like this. Thank you!
Thank you, we certainly will. :-)
The Great Courses are for the most part excellent with a few limited exceptions. The series on the CRUSADES, on the Byzantine Empire, for example, are amazing in the erudition of the professor from the University of Louisiana, his name escapes me; however, the ones on Western Civilization have quite a few blatant errors such as Philip II destroying Thebes when we all know it was Alexander III. Moreover, his treatment of the Punic wars are reduced to a few ambiguous statements.
Yeah, they have some really nice courses.
Great video and Happy birthday!!! General
Thank you :)
This intro is the realest man
Thanks!
I think we need a "Fire Arrows (response to Lindy Beige)" video
...I think we've all seen that one, or should have :)
-Jake
I think, eventually I will make a video full of my own grievances. :-) Constant "fire arrow? Idiot!" is annoying. :-)
Kings and Generals
It's okays. I like your uploads just the way they are. I can't do anything like what your able to pull off in these videos so who am I to judge?
...but I do think of lindy beige every time I see a fire arrow. It's more of a tip of the hat to him than anything else.
In video game type graphics a small black stripe of an arrow moving in real time would probably look more like a graphical error than a physical object.
The graphics are just here to support the interesting insights and info ;)
:-)
Happy late BD... just saw that sry ;)
Thank you very much! :-)
Happy birthday K&G! So, is there any part of Greek warfare you didn't cover yet?
Thank you! We will cover Macedon, Diadochi, Epirus, Byzantium, so, in a way, we haven't even covered 20% of it.
Ah, I didn't think about that :D There is still a lot to cover
Can't wait for Byzantium, rarely ever does anyone cover that and it's the longest and probably most interesting period of this area, at least in military terms.
Most excited about Byzantine
I don't think the Peloponnese war was covered? And rise of Thebes was not covered.
Demetrius the Besieger would like this one.
He surely would. :-)
typically at this time, how much of a countries economy was urban and how much grain was typically stored? It amazes me that Athens could neglect it's countryside for so long and later Rome could neglect it's countryside during the 2nd punic war
Happy birthday General...this is awesome!
Thank you and thank you! :-)
I am skeptical on the effect that macedonian torsion catapult have on walls. More likely they were used as covering fire against defenders on the walls while others assaulted the walls with rams or towers.
We will discuss it more in our upcoming series on the Macedonian warfare. :-)
You are right. It was only under Alexander and the developments to the torsion catapult by Diades that made them powerful enough to bring down walls. Philip's torsion catapults still predominantly fired arrows and were used anti-personnel. We'll cover this :)
Is this where all that dank youtube and patreon money is going? A sky-lit, stone circular library with thousands of ancient old tomes and mahogany bookshelves? Badass my good man.
Food
Yea I know. Twas a joke.
*RICH MAHOGANY*
This was a very well made documentary! I myself thought that the earliest piece of siege artillery was a version of the catapult and/or the ballista. I also never knew that the Greeks suffered so much in sieges at this time. I wonder how the crossbow was not rendered portable and how it failed to replace the bow.... probably I might venture, it was due to the complexity and or fragility, in comparison to the bow which was more practical and cheap. Very interesting! Keep it up!
Simple google search: The earliest crossbow-like weapons in Europe probably emerged around the late 5th century BC when the gastraphetes, an ancient Greek crossbow, appeared.
It only became a staple weapon replacing the crossbow in many areas by like 800 AD, but I'm probably wrong on that.
Alas, that still doesn't tell anyone (in fact, it is not really known) as to why such a weapon took circa 1400 years to come into common use!
Also, the "Greek crossbow" to call it that, was more like an arbalest
Happy Birthday and congrats on being one of the fastest rising channels !
Thank you very much!
Great, loved it
Appreciate it!
I don't care what the plebs say, learning about the ancient world and all the stuff they did never gets old!
Happy Birthday man! Love your videos, keep it up!
Thank you!
Χρόνια πολλά Kings and Generals!!! Happy birthday Kings and Generals!!!
Thank you very much!
Excellent video, I'm glad it popped up in my RUclips recommendations.
Consider subscribing, we have new videos every Sunday and Thursday. :-)
Kings and Generals, done, and Happy Birthday :D
I don’t know why but I’m obsessed with Siege Warfare specifically the actual Siege Machines.
Happy birthday Kings and genrals
I am a simple man. I see notification of a new video from Kings and Generals, I watch and click like.
Thank you very much for your trust in us! :-)
Great job!! Also happy birthday ! Mine is in two days! I love these videos!
Thank you and happy birthday!
First like, then watch
Thanks :-)
Best K & G. As scholar and tour-guide in Greece, ( tourtripgreece. gr )specialized in ancient warfare & battlefields , I enjoy your videos, excellent work ! I would love to see more about the siege of Plataia (429 BC of the Spartans-Thevans) and the spectacular escape of the 220 defenders. The consctruction of the doube siege wall and the defensive city-wall, was just amazing (still remains visable)
Hope you can show us all these when we visit Greece next year. :)
I would love to show you on the venue, in detail..."REAL' wars...strategies...warfare...battles that smell the soil !
Marathon (490 BC), Thermopylae (480 BC) , Plataea (479 BC) , Mantineia (418 & 362 BC), Lefctra (372 BC), Delion 424 BC), Pylos-Sfacteria 425 BC...etc (www.tourtripgreece.gr)
Love the Riven vibe of your intro
Thanks! :-)
The Delta on the Athenian flags and shields never cease to remind me of the Assassin's Creed emblem lol
Happy birthday K&G :-) Approaching 250k subs ;-)
Thank you very much! :-)
Beautiful and informative video. Thank you as always!!!
Thanks for watching!
Very good and useful, especially for historians.Well done man
Thank you, more on the way!
Step 1: Build a big horse.
Step 2: Win.
Instructions unclear, ate the horse, didn't win.
Happy birthday Man
Thanks!
Please make videos about the wars fought be Shivaji and the marathas
A video about Ottoman siege strategy would be nice.
I'm a little disappointed you did not mention the Vallum. It is not nearly as well known as the rest of the siege engines, and probably more used. I only lerned of it from Lindybeige.
Otherwise the entire video playlist was great!
I know it's almost too simple and obvious to mention in a video about siege warfare, but you could have mentioned the use of ladders too! I suppose the ladder could be an invention as old as the wheel.
That is a good point, indeed the ladders were used.
Happy bday man! Also, great video =)
Thank you very much!
I'd love to see a video on some of the battles of the Russo-Japanese war.
Noted, will consider.
quite interesting....also the fact that engineering feats of the antiquity such as the siege or Tyre by Alexander far surpass what the European of the medieval period could achieve...mostly it would seems trough sheers man power
you should check out the new assassins creed! great portrayal of sparta and athens
I bought it. Have no time to play. :-(
How about Miletius (Ionian Greek) cooperation with Persia during the short siege of Naxos in 499 BC? What kind of equipments did they use? Couldn't find info in the internet.
Thank you
Another great video. Could you please do a video on the British conquest of India
Thank you, will consider!
Good video but I have a question,during the Peloponnesian wars did pillaging or massacring a city's inhabitants happen after the city was won by any one of the leagues?
Yes, in fact historians argue that the Peloponnesian Wars were seen similarly to how World War One would look like in the eyes of a European in 1914. Thucidides characterized it as "A war like no other". There were executions of captive soldiers, raids, pillaging and mutilations (for example Spartans used to cut off the thumbs of Athenian oarsmen so they would not be able to continue their practice).
Thanks for the reply.
Not surprised siege wasn't common. Have you ever placed spears on walls? They might have figured that one out after the walls were built or maybe they were so they could phalanx the streets in time...
Awesome vid bro and happy birthday.
Wich software do you use to create your videos? They are amazing
Thank you! After Effects, mostly.
Happy Birthday! Can you guys do Ancient Italy?
Thank you! Planning to!
Can you please make a video about Alexios Komnenos and the Komnenian Restoration?
Good video once again. One correction. It's pronounced Hop-Light or Hop-Lite not Hoplitay
Thanks! There are multiple "schools" of pronunciation.
Can you do some videos on the great northern war or seven years war please
Its been like 3 months since the last Ottoman, would be nice if u guys finished that one
What an informative video. I had no idea that siege warfare had been used by Athens n Sparta during their famous conflict. I thought Philip II had introduced it into the Greek World. Oh well consider me corrected. My compliments to those who made this video a reality.
Sir please can you make a video on The Battle of Red Cliffs.
It is on the list
Is there going to be an armies and tactics on non-greeks or romans. Many examples abound like mongols, indian elephants etc
Yes, it is planned.
Do about the invasions of emperor Basil II it would be great!
On the list.
I love your videos! Keep it up!
I wanted to add a little something. Knowing that you aim on authenticity in your videos, some pronunciations of Greek words sound wrong. The most common mistake is the pronunciation of (-oi), examples: "Perioik-oi", "Lithovol-oi". The right way to say it must sound like (e) and not -Oi (O and E). Those words should sound like "Perioiki" and "Lithovoli". Oi (Οι in Greek) sounds exactly like the english E but indicates plural form. For instance, Lithovolos (λιθο-βολος=stone-thrower) and Lithovoloi (Λιθο-βολοι=stone-throwers).
How about doing a piece about the naval conquest of South Asia by Emperor Rajendra 1 of Chola Empire, it was the strongest navy of of it's time even better than the Byzantines and the Italian states.
Will consider!
That's overstatement, byzentine had the Greek fire and cultivated the ancient Greek naval tradition.
India never had any naval tradition
wow.nice one! tnx
I'm really excited to watch your series on persian empire.
you working on it right?! :))
For now it is planned. :-)
Kings and Generals
thank you.
by the way happy birthday mate!
I want you to know I introduced your work to all my friends and they liked it too.
stay strong and don't forget the persians ;)))
Thank you! :-)
Can you do a video about the battle of gallipoli? It would be nice and cool video btw
It is on the list.
Are you planning on doing a video on "the Battle of Vienna 1683"?
or rather did you consider it as video idea?
Yes, it is on the list.
Kings and Generals Pls don't do it. XD
Wow love the intro
i kind like it how he tell story with the great game, love this vid and all his video
4:32 they also forced them to accept a 30 member , athenian, pro Spartan oligarcy to rule upon them ,better known as the 30 tyrrants . (After 8 months ) They were overhrown by the opposition , which formed between the citizens they sent into exile , despite them outnumbering the opposition and despite the fact a lot of their opponents were fighting merely with stones . That happened thanks to the terrain and the charge that followed , which penetraited their lines ( the charge started from a hill , which put heir enemies into disadvantage ) . Therefore , democracy was restored and in a surprising turn of events , the Spartans let them get away with it , seeing the crimes committed during the regime , after talks for negotiation.
The Spartans had the armed forced ready for an easy takeover , but , then, that happened
Μαντιθεος...😂😂αρχαια ελληνικα β' λυκειου
Petros 01 α' λυκείου lmao
Christermi Christos στην κυπρο ειναι β'
Happy birthday my good sir and don't you worry, I retweeted this video.
Thank you very much!
You're welcome. Maybe you'll surprise me on my birthday.
Just kidding on the last one.
What about the supposed siege of Troy? (Reference to the beginning of the video about absence of sieges till 490 BC)
The video says "no reliable evidence for sieges between 1100-490 BC"...
Everything good to your Birthday and really good video ;-)
Thank you, my friend!
Kings and Generals no problem Friend ^^
Would love to see the Spartan king Agisilaus campaign in Persia very interesting if not for the anti Spartan coilicion he would have brought the Persian empire to it's knees
Will consider!
2:09 Caesar could've built that 7 km wall in three weeks, change my mind.
5:15 the tyrannt of Syracuse , who came to power after he defeated the Carthagenians
I personally think this time period was the best in history.
In what way? :-)
Kings and Generals innovation
Happy Birthday !
Thank you!
During this time, were there any written records of the using the lithobolois to launch heated stones in hopes of setting fires?
Thank you.
Good job and have a nice birthday party!
Thank you very much!