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The chariot derived from the four-wheeled wagon, which was replaced by a two-wheeled vehicle after the original wagon was found to be too cumbersome for combat. While the precise origin of the chariot remains unknown, it is known that the Hyksos, of Semitic origin (c. 1700 BCE), introduced the horse-drawn chariot during invasions of Egypt (c. 1674 BCE). Hammurabi, ruler of the Amorite Dynasty (c. 1750 BCE) in Mesopotamia, was driven from the Near Eastern sphere of power when conquered by the Hittites, a people from the northern mountain regions of modern Iran and Iraq whose spearmen fought from chariots. In Asia, Shang Dynasty (1384–1122 BCE) armies introduced the chariot to northern China in order to overrun the earlier Chou (Zhou) Dynasty (1122–221 BCE).

Muwatallis (mew-wah-TAL-uhs) was the second of four sons of the Hittite king Mursilis II (d. 1306) and ascended the throne upon his father’s death. His predecessors had exercised their sway over northern Syria without being challenged by Egypt. However, Pharaoh Ramses II marched his army north to Kadesh on the Orontes River. The Amorite chieftain Benteshina defected to Ramses’ side. Muwatallis worked out a stratagem to slow the Egyptian advance. A group of Hittite allies pretending to be deserters seeking sanctuary with Ramses ambushed the pharaoh. The Hittite chariots swept in, bearing two men each and overpowering the Egyptian infantry. Ramses eventually rallied his forces and saved the Egyptians from complete defeat at the Battle of Kadesh. Benteshina again pledged fealty to the Hittites.

Since early times, horses have supported mobile, lightly armored combat via chariots or mounted knights. Later, internal combustion engines and tractor treads enabled rapid off-road movement of heavily armed and armored vehicles. Called tanks, these craft decisively affected many land campaigns, especially in World War II (1939–1945); but their expense, weight, and complexity often created controversy over their proper use and future existence.

Athlete. Eric Henry Liddell’s spectacular 400-meter victory in the 1924 Paris Olympics was highlighted in the celebrated film Chariots of Fire (1981). The “Flying Scotsman,” as he came to be known, was born on January 16, 1902, in Tianjin, China. His parents were Scottish, and his father was a Christian missionary. Missionary work inevitably became important in Eric’s life. From the time he was five years old, Eric lived in Scotland. Although small, he was athletic and grew up enjoying rugby.

Athlete. Harold Maurice Abrahams’ spectacular victory in the 100 meters at the 1924 Paris Olympics was commemorated in the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire (1981). Harold was born into a wealthy Lithuanian Jewish family on December 15, 1899, in Bedford, England. Harold was the third son of Isaac and Esther Abrahams, and his desire to excel in sport was mostly the result of sibling competitiveness. Both his brothers were high-caliber athletes, and one had been a member of the English team at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. Harold was a sociable person, and, although he was an outsider among the English elite, he was not adversely affected and succeeded in almost everything he attempted. He had a privileged education, attending Repton, a famous independent school for boys.

The Terracotta Army is a collection of clay statues that were found buried in central China. At least seven thousand near life-size statues of soldiers are part of the funeral art prepared for China’s first emperor in the third century BCE. Each soldier is uniquely designed and fully dressed for battle. The army, along with chariots, horses and other animals, dancers and other figures that would be found in a royal court, made up the underground burial site that was discovered in the Shaanxi province in the mid-twentieth century.

A griffin, also spelled gryphon, is a mythological creature most often portrayed with the wings and head of an eagle and the body of a lion. Legends of the griffin are believed to have originated in the Middle East or Asia and may have been inspired by fossilized bones of long-extinct dinosaurs. The Persians saw these creatures as protective figures. To the Egyptians, griffins were the steeds that pulled the chariots of the pharaohs. The Greeks portrayed them as ferocious guardians of horded treasure and gold. The image of the griffin became popular in Greek art and endured into the medieval period as a symbol of strength. Griffins were worn on shields carried by knights in battle, and they even became associated with religious figures and the concept of monogamous marriage.

As its name suggests, the human flea is a parasite on humans. A parasite is an animal which lives on or in another animal. Although the human flea lives on human skin and feeds on human blood, it may also be found on pigs, cats, dogs, goats, and rats.

Field archery is a competitive sport based on historic archery practices. It is distinct from target archery, in which archers shoot at identical stationary targets that are a fixed distance away. In field archery, targets of various sizes are placed at numerous distances from the archer and at various elevations. These differences force the archer to develop additional skills, such as guessing the distance of the target and compensating for both height and terrain.

Mahavir Janma Kalyanak is a festival celebrating the birth anniversary of the twenty-fourth Tirthankara Mahavir, Lord Mahavira, the founder of Jainism. It is also called the Mahavir Jayanti and the Birth Anniversary of Lord Mahavira. It is one of the most important festivals of the Jain religion and takes place in the spring. About six million people worldwide practice Jainism, although less than 2 percent of the population of India, where the largest number of practitioners is found, follows the religion.

All physical materials interact where their surfaces interface. The interaction is characterized by friction, abrasion, and heat generation. These effects have harmful effects in every instance. Tribology, the study of those effects, works to eliminate negative effects and to find positive ways to harness them. Tribological effects, primarily friction, play a role in every mechanical aspect of existence. They are of particular significance in the ultrasmall devices of nanotechnology and in the biomechanics of living systems. The development of scanning probe microscopy has made it possible to understand tribology at the atomic scale.

Although little is known about the early history of the Southeast Asian region and the origins of its peoples are unclear, the neighboring civilizations of both China and India had major influences upon Southeast Asian history. As a result of the permeation of Indian culture in the fifth century, the Indian warrior class and methods of waging war were adopted by the new Southeast Asian empires. The migration of the Guptas led to the founding of the Funan Empire. The Pallava wave was the impetus for the empires of Angkor (Cambodia) and Śrivijaya; and the Pāla Dynasty of Bengal profoundly influenced the Javan culture. The desire for aggressive imperial expansion was also subsequently embraced in Southeast Asia, and constant raids and sieges among Southeast Asian empires mark the early history of the region.

India’s long history, with the exception of Aśoka’s (c. 302-c. 232 b.c.e.) Mauryan rule between 269 and 232 b.c.e., has been one of constant internal strife and defensive warfare. Early Hindu literature considered war and duplicity as serious activities, extolling them as honorable duties of king and subject alike. A warrior caste, the kṣatriya, was dedicated to warfare, and the concepts of glory and honor were punctuated in works such as the Mahābhārata (c. 400 b.c.e. -200 c.e. ; The Mahabharata, 1834); the Manusmṛti (compiled 200 b.c.e. -200 c.e. ; The Laws of Manu, 1886); and the Arthaśāstra (300 b.c.e. -300 c.e. ; Treatise on the Political Good, 1961). Prior to the Mauryan Empire and Aśoka’s rule, war had been brutal and merciless. After the second century b.c.e. , however, war was fought in a more humane manner.

Infantry is that part or those parts of an army trained and organized to fight on foot with handheld weapons. Foot soldiers have formed the largest component of most armies throughout history. Infantry forces are attested in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, and China, where they were used both in battle and in assaulting and defending fortified positions.

The Chaldeans, or Neo-Babylonians, are credited with destroying the Assyrian Empire and establishing a new one in the Near East that was responsible for sacking Jerusalem, razing the Jewish temple located there, and destroying and deporting the kingdom of Judah in 586 b.c.e. The Chaldean culture was known not for military innovation but rather for honing previously used policies, weapons, and tactics in campaigns and battles that were fought over most of the ancient Near East.

The history of the Hebrew people contains a large number of military campaigns and battles. The biblical stories of the walls of Jericho falling down and of David standing against Goliath with a slingshot are familiar ones to many people. These are, however, only two of many well-known war stories from the Bible. Initially, warfare was one of the methods the Israelites employed to first settle a homeland. The location of that homeland, the strategic Syro-Palestinian corridor, guaranteed that they would be engaged in continual warfare, trying to secure the land and to protect themselves from invasions from Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Assyria was the ancient name of the area surrounding the upper Tigris River and its principal tributaries, the Greater Zab and the Lesser Zab, in northern Iraq. From an early period the people living there, the Assyrians, adopted many cultural features of the more civilized Sumerians of the lower Tigris and Euphrates River valleys, including cuneiform writing and a “hydraulic civilization,” which required irrigation to take advantage of the available fertile alluvial plain. Although food could be produced locally, virtually all metals, luxury goods, and horses had to be imported or seized from surrounding mountains to the north and east, in modern Turkey and Iran, where the Assyrians frequently faced invasion from hostile tribes. The Assyrians needed to secure defensible borders beyond their homeland, and thus became intimately linked to the material prosperity of their empire.

The evolution of warfare in ancient Mesopotamia led to the creation of large and powerful empires in the Near East, the weapons and formations of which influenced classical civilization. Historians believe that the beginnings of organized warfare coincided with the dawn of written history in both Mesopotamia and Egypt, probably independently of each other. Around 4000 b.c.e. the Sumerians, a people of unknown ethnic origin, settled in southern Mesopotamia, building their cities and fortifications from mud bricks. They failed to create a stable, unified kingdom and lived in a cluster of independent city-states, such as Ur, Kish, Lagash, Erech, Suruppack, Larsa, and Umma, and constantly warred with each other for supremacy over the region.

The Hittites ruled a powerful empire in Asia Minor and northern Syria during the seventeenth to twelfth centuriesb.c.e. One of their primary military achievements was in establishing a sphere of political influence in the Near East. Another was their creation of a professional army, in conjunction with refinements in siege warfare and the training of horses for use with the lightweight, single-axle chariot.

Bows and arrows are among the oldest and most popular weapons of all time. Although simple in design, their invention represented one of the most important technological innovations of primitive humans, one that allowed individuals to attack both animal and human targets with greater force, from longer range, and with a more rapid rate of fire than had been possible with the spear or other handheld projectiles. Bows and arrows were presumably first used for hunting, perhaps as early as 30,000 b.c.e., but Neolithic cave paintings show them deployed as weapons against other humans by about 10,000 b.c.e.

Cavalry are soldiers mounted on horseback using the mobility and speed of their horses to pursue or outmaneuver adversaries, perform long-distance reconnaissance, and, when charging, deliver force and shock action against an enemy. The history and use of cavalry in war parallels the development and application of specific weapons and weapons-related tactics.

The Apollo flights to the Moon followed the Mercury and Gemini programs. Six successful Mercury missions proved that humans could endure the space environment. Gemini astronauts completed five successful missions, one lasting two weeks. These astronauts practiced walks in space and spacecraft rendezvous and docking procedures. The Apollo program would culminate decades of investigations and applications of aerodynamics, rocket propulsion, aerospace medicine, and electronics.

Violent conflict must have existed before civilization—John Keegan wrote that “Warfare is almost as old as man himself.” However, only with the rise of great cities did organized warfare become possible. Between about 10,000 and 5,000 b.c.e., there was a shift from wandering and gathering to agricultural and village life in many places throughout the ancient world, beginning with the area that historians call the Ancient Near East. This change caused conflict between settled peoples and those who remained at least seminomadic. The surpluses of grain and other food made possible by agriculture looked inviting to wandering peoples. The biblical story of the Israelite conquest of Palestine, including the capture of the heavily walled city of Jericho, is an echo of this type of warfare.

The recruitment of animals for military operations dates to the earliest period of human history. Birds, camels, dogs, dolphins, elephants, horses, monkeys, oxen, rats, and other animals have served as attackers, beasts of burden, defenders, food, messengers, scouts to flush out enemies and detect mines and other booby traps, sentries, surveillance tools, and weapons. Animals often must undergo rigorous training to fulfill their roles in battle. Animals killed in action may even have their own monuments and museums.

France, derived from the Late Latin Francia, is named for the Franks who were members of a Germanic tribe, especially the Salian Franks who conquered Gaul about 500 c.e. In antiquity, the region consisted of the territory south and west of the Rhine, west of the Alps, and north of the Pyrenees, and included present-day Belgium.

The life and literary career of Emily Dickinson were filled with irony. In deciding that some of the poems she sent him were not strong enough for publication, the essayist and critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson is said to have remarked that they were “too delicate.” This judgment is only one of the many strange blunders made in connection with a woman who has finally been accorded the rank of a major poet.

Although it represents a scientific report and a classic study of archaeology, The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen includes a varied array of prose genres. The book is dedicated to the earl of Carnarvon, who sponsored the excavations of Howard Carter; it opens with a biography of that nobleman written by his sister Winifred, Lady Burghclere. This account is followed by eleven chapters arranged chronologically but varying greatly in contents and level of generality. These chapters are divisible into two major sections. The first five narrate the history of the reign of Tutankhamen, describe his burial site in the Valley of the Kings, explain archaeological work in the valley, and report the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The second part, consisting of six chapters, explains in detail the work of Carter and his team during the first season of excavating the tomb.

Among the descendants of King Bharata (after whose name India was called Bharata-varsha, land of the Bharatas) there are two successors to the throne of Hastinapura. Of these, the elder, Dhritarashtra, is blind and gives over the reins of government to his younger brother, Pandu. Pandu grows weary of his duties and retires to hunt and enjoy himself. Again, Dhritarashtra takes control, aided by the advice and example of his wise old uncle, Bhishma. Upon Pandu’s death, his five sons are put under the care of his younger brother, who has one hundred sons of his own.

Urartu (oo-RAHR-tew; biblical Ararat) at its zenith embraced the lands stretching from Lake Urmia (Orūmīyeh) in northwestern Iran north to Lake Sevan and the middle Araxes (Araks) River, and then west to the Upper Euphrates. The heartland of Urartian civilization was the high plateau on the eastern shores of Lake Van. The southern border marched along the Tur Abdin and associated mountains that divide Transcaucasia from northern Mesopotamia. Urartu was ideal for raising livestock and rich in metals.

Although it is unknown whether the Olympic Games actually began in 776 b.c.e., winners of each Olympic Festival were recorded from that year until 217 c.e. by the chronographer Eusebius of Caesarea. The festival provided an occasion for the disparate Greek city-states to celebrate their shared language, religion, and culture. Political disputes were suspended during all four Panhellenic athletic competitions, including the Olympic Games and Nemean Games honoring Zeus, the Pythian Games honoring Apollo, and the Isthmian Games dedicated to Poseidon at Corinth. The Olympic Games were the most prestigious and were held once every four years at the first full Moon after the summer solstice. The four-year period between Olympic Festivals was known as an Olympiad and could be used as a means of calculating dates.

Transportation, the methods used by people to move themselves and their goods, is strongly dependent on technology. Starting with human locomotion and animal power, it evolved into the use of wheeled vehicles, ships, and, later, mechanically powered vehicles. In the infancy of new transportation systems, military applications often come first, followed by commercial adaptations. For example, the vessels that started as fighting galleys were also used as trading ships in early Mediterranean civilizations, and the war chariot was the fastest land vehicle in the days of Julius Caesar. Because of the need to communicate rapidly with garrisons and outposts, the Romans, among others, built roads of extremely high quality. As each means of transportation matures, military and commercial needs diverge. By 2000 b.c.e., many parts of the world contained relatively advanced civilizations in terms of technology and commerce.

The palace of Mycenae (mi-SEE-nee), known in legend as the palace of Agamemnon, occupies the center of the citadel at Mycenae, near the southern wall. The walled citadel was constructed atop a highly defensible rocky hill with rugged ravines on the north and south sides.

Egyptian queen (r. c. 1503-1482 b.c.e.). Hatshepsut (hat-SHEHP-sewt), or Hatshopsitu, was the daughter of Thutmose I and his consort (the Egyptian title was “great royal wife”) Ahmose. Little is known of Hatshepsut’s early life. Although Thutmose I was the third king of the powerful Eighteenth Dynasty, he was probably not of royal blood on his mother’s side; the princess Ahmose, however, was of the highest rank. During the period in Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom (from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasty; c. 1570-c. 1069 b.c.e.), royal women began to play a more active role in political affairs. Among her titles, the pharaoh’s chief wife was called the “divine consort of Amen” (Amen was one of the principal Theban deities). Being the wife of a god increased her status, and her children were given a certain precedence over the children of minor wives or concubines.

Egyptian pharaoh (r. 1334–1325 BCE). For years the lineage of Tutankhamen (TEWT-ahn-KAH-muhn) was uncertain, and despite the vast assortment of riches discovered in his tomb, the exact dates and events of his rule remain shrouded in mystery. Although DNA tests published in 2010 found genetic matches for his parents, controversy has surrounded even those results. Presumably born in Tell el-Amārna, Tutankhamen was proven to be the son of another mummy considered by most to be that of Akhenaton (1350–1334 BCE). However, some dispute that identification of Tutankhamen's father, and others consider the DNA tests used to be flawed as well. The identity of Tutankhamen’s mother is even less certain. The 2010 DNA analysis as well as another study in 2014 determined that she was certainly the sister of Tutankhamen's father, but it is unclear which one. The mummy of Tutankhamen's mother is known as the Younger Lady, and, like Akhenaton, was a child of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye.

Israeli king (r. c. 961-930 b.c.e.) . Solomon (SAHL-oh-muhn) was the second child born to King David and Bathsheba and the fifth of David’s sons. Although the sources are silent about Solomon’s childhood, it is known that the prophet Nathan, who had enormous court influence, was his tutor. Accordingly, Solomon would have received a very thorough grounding in Jewish civil and religious teachings. His position at the court was enhanced by his mother, a remarkably intelligent figure with influence over the king.

Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse group of cultural tales, folklore, histories, and religious traditions compiled over the course of thousands of years. Among the most famous stories of Chinese myths are the creation tales of the god Pangu and the goddess Nüwa, the cultural hero known as the Yellow Emperor, the legendary archer Hou Yi, and the hierarchy of mystical Chinese dragons. The earliest accounts of Chinese mythology date back to about 1200 BCE and were passed down for a thousand years through storytelling, cultural dance, and plays. The first written accounts of the myths date to about the third century BCE. Chinese mythology has both influenced and been influenced by China’s three major religious systems: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Some elements of Chinese myth adopted ideas from these religions, while the religions also borrowed elements from Chinese myths.

Zheng (who became Shi Huangdi after becoming emperor) was born the son of the king of Qin state. After his father’s death, at the age of thirteen, Zheng became king and began a crusade to reform China. By 221 b.c.e., Qin’s armies had conquered the six other primary Chinese states, unifying China for the first time in its history. Zheng, now Shi Huangdi, emperor of the Qin Dynasty (Ch’in; 221-206 b.c.e.), further unified the country by deposing the remaining feudal warlords, establishing a system of prefectures administered by government officials appointed from the Qin capital, codified Chinese law, introduced standard weights and measures, issued a single national currency, and formulated a single written Chinese alphabet and language. To protect his newly unified nation, Shi Huangdi began the construction of a defensive barrier along the northern frontier, known as the Great Wall (some scholars believe that this wall is not the same as the Great Wall that stands today, which was constructed in the sixteenth century, during the Ming Dynasty).

About 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Lima, Peru, is the Nasca Plain, a featureless desert of red-brown pebbles located on a high, rainless plateau. Although the view from the ground is uninteresting, aerial views reveal an enduring and enigmatic human-constructed spectacle, the Nasca lines and images. Etched into the desert floor are a huge conglomeration of lines, geometric shapes, and images of animals. Although the size of the figures is gargantuan, spanning hundreds of feet, they are surprisingly well proportioned, while the lines connecting the figures extend for miles and are absolutely straight.

After King Philip II of Macedonia had defeated the Greek states in the Battle of Chaeronea (338 b.c.e.), he made plans to invade the Persian Empire. His assassination in 336, however, forestalled this scheme until his son Alexander made his succession to the throne secure. In 334, Alexander the Great invaded Asia Minor and quickly defeated the Persians on the Granicus River. Alexander advanced eastward and, at the town of Issus in northern Syria, defeated King Darius II himself in 333. Next, Alexander took the wealthy province of Egypt in 332.

The death of Pindar, a native of Thebes, marked the end of archaic choral lyric poetry, one of the greatest literary achievements of the ancient Greeks. Like J. S. Bach, whose work came at the end of an artistic era (the Baroque) and summed up, while surpassing, the works of his contemporaries, Pindar was universally acknowledged as the greatest Greek lyric poet. His poems express the fullest flowering of the genre of extremely complex choral odes that combined song, dance, and musical accompaniment by lyres and pipes (reed instruments similar to oboes). Also, just as the generation following Bach was turning to new forms of music that made Bach’s music seem outdated, so Athenian drama, oratory, history, philosophy, and new forms of poetry were eclipsing Pindar’s lyric poetry.

The first Assyrian Empire began with Shamshi-Adad I (r. c. 1814-1782 b.c.e.), who established limited Assyrian rule in the ancient Middle Eastern region with the purpose of controlling strategic trade routes in and near the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. However, the great king of the Babylonian Empire, Hammurabi, defeated the Assyrian’s son, Ishme-Dagan I (1782-c. 1741 b.c.e.), and the first Assyrian Empire collapsed. With the fall of Babylon in the sixteenth century b.c.e. as a result of a very powerful Kassite invasion force, Assyria also succumbed to the Kassites and endured repeated invasions by various marauding nomadic tribes. In the fifteenth century b.c.e., the powerful Mitanni kingdom invaded and enslaved the Assyrian heartland, as well as other states within the northern Mesopotamia region, for more than two centuries. In the thirteenth century b.c.e., the once mighty Mitanni kingdom collapsed because of a massive and successful Hittite invasion. The Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I (r. c. 1363-1330 b.c.e.), taking full advantage of the regional turmoil with the fall of the Mitanni kingdom, temporarily restored Assyria’s independence and freedom of action by strengthening the field army and using it to recapture Assyrian territories.

In March, 1974, near the modern city of Xi’an in north-central China, Yang Zhifa and some fellow farmers made an astonishing discovery. While digging a well, they unearthed—about fifteen feet beneath the surface—a large human face made of clay. Chinese archaeologists were soon excavating the site, and then an ever-expanding area around it. The original find was part of an enormous underground pit that contained several thousand freestanding, life-size clay soldiers, many with weapons. This “spirit army” of buried warriors had been produced in the late third century b.c.e. by command of Qin Shihuangdi, the self-proclaimed “first emperor of China.” By examining the unique characteristics of these clay sculptures and tracing the techniques of their production, scholars were able to expand markedly the knowledge of early Chinese history.

English poet, novelist, and critic. Robert Graves was one of the most prolific and controversial writers of the twentieth century: poet, novelist, literary critic, biographer, lecturer, translator of ancient texts, and popularizer of mythology. Poetry was his constant love; he claimed to have written his novels only to make money. Some of his work shocked historians and theologians, and he probably influenced the feminist movement, indirectly at least, with his enthusiasm for the ancient Triple Goddess of the moon, the earth, and the underworld. A popular film was based on his biographical Lawrence and the Arabs, and a successful miniseries was written for television based on his two historical novels about the Roman emperor Claudius.

Summary: The civilization of Ancient Greece refers to a period that began during the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200-800 BCE) and lasted until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BCE. The ancient Greeks were known for their mythology, the myths and legends of their twelve major gods and heroes that formed one aspect of their religion. Though not all religious principles were universal among all Greek peoples, many of their myths and beliefs were commonly shared. Prior to the Hellenistic Age, one of the four main periods of ancient Greece--about the fourth century BCE--no recorded collection of Greek myths existed that could be compared to the religious writings of other civilizations, such as the Vedas or the Bible. Instead, the religion and mythology of Greece survived through the oral tradition, such as mothers teaching the stories to their children.

Transportation technologies refer to vehicles or other innovations that help people, animals, or goods move from one place to another. Ancient inventions such as boats, wheels, and paved roads helped to increase the ease and efficiency of travel. In medieval times, updates to sailing technology helped explorers navigate the oceans. In modern times, transportation technologies have advanced and diversified greatly. Trains, aircraft, and mass-produced automobiles have become common. Starting in the 1950s, humanity began designing vehicles to transport people and machines into space.

The most significant of the steppe warrior societies included the Scythian, Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu), Yuezhi (Yüeh-chih), Śaka, Sarmatian, Avar, Hun, and White Hun. Some, such as the Yuezhi, were Indo-European peoples, and others, such as the Huns, were Turko-Mongolian peoples. Population growth was marked by competition for pasture lands in the north and by irrigation networks to the south. Nomadic societies looked to towns for trade but at other times were tempted to raid their accumulated produce and crafts. Until the emergence of cannons and muskets, the settled communities were easy prey for the mounted nomad warriors.

The tribes in central and eastern Europe that fought against the Roman Empire for the most part preserved their independence, and from the fifth century c.e., the combined effect of these tribes was to bring about the destruction of the Roman Empire of the West and also to weaken severely the Roman Empire of the East, making it far more susceptible to attack from the Turks, which led to its own military and then political decline. Prior to their defeat of the Romans, the tribes served to unite the Romans, who feared them greatly. The fact that the tribesmen were victorious against Roman armies in battle spread panic and terror to many Roman households, and this led many Roman generals to try to establish their political reputations through fighting against the German tribes. Although the tribes moved, by the fourth century c.e. the Vandals were between the Viadua and the Vistula rivers, the Visigoths were in modern-day Romania, north of the Danube, the Ostrogoths were in southern modern-day Ukraine, and the Huns were further east.

The Persians were an Iranian-speaking, Indo-European people. As described in both the Rigveda and the Avesta, the sacred texts of Hinduism and Zoroastrianism respectively, warriors played an important part in Persian society. The warrior class, from which chiefs and kings were chosen, was second in status only to that of the priests. However, these religious texts, written by priests, may overemphasize the importance of the priest class within Persian society. Horses were important to the Persians, who used them effectively against both the native inhabitants of the Iranian plateau and their Mesopotamian neighbors, especially the Assyrians, whose military technology was the most advanced in the world in the first millennium b.c.e. Ancient Persian history can be divided into three periods: the Achaemenid Persian period (550-330 b.c.e. ), the Hellenic and Parthian period (330 b.c.e. -224 c.e. ), and the Sāsānian period (224-651 c.e. ).

The period from 1600 to 336 b.c.e. saw the emergence in Greece of four distinct ways of war. The first of these, Mycenaean chariot warfare, did not survive past about 1100 b.c.e. It was succeeded by an infantry-based system of individual combat, often called “heroic” because of its prominence in Homer’s Iliad (c. 750 b.c.e. ; English translation, 1611) and Odyssey (c. 725 b.c.e. ; English translation, 1614). This system in turn gave way to the close-order infantry warfare of classical Greece. A fourth way of war, the combined arms system developed by the Macedonians in the mid-fourth century b.c.e. , ultimately overcame the classical Greeks and provided the basis for the conquests of Alexander the Great.

The Egyptian Empire was one of the longest-lasting in the ancient world, and it was largely kept together by military force rather than diplomacy. Its great wealth encouraged invasions such as those by the Hyksos, the Hittites, and the Sea Peoples. Later it was to face far greater threats from the Macedonians, and later still the Romans.