The Greatest Battles of Ancient Greece

1 Salamis, 480 BC

Where

The strait between the island of Salamis and the coast of Attica, Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' invasion of Greece

Fleets

Allied fleet of the Greek city-states vs the Persian fleet of Xerxes

Strength

310 to 378 Greek ships (Aeschylus, Herodotus) vs 1,207 Persian in both writers, about 500 in one modern estimate

Result

Greek victory; Xerxes went back to Asia

By late September 480 BC Xerxes had forced Thermopylae and taken Athens, and the Greek fleet lay in the strait between Salamis and the Attic shore. Athens alone supplied 180 of its ships in Herodotus' list. The totals are disputed: Herodotus counts 378 Greek ships and Aeschylus 310, and both give Xerxes 1,207; a modern estimate is about 500, with no scholarly consensus.²

In a story Herodotus tells that may not be true, Themistocles sent a slave to tell the Persians that the Greeks were about to slip away. Before dawn on 29 September the Persian ships rowed into the narrows and were struck in the flank. Diodorus, writing four centuries later, puts the losses at 40 Greek ships against more than 200 Persian, not counting those captured. Xerxes went home and left Mardonius with the land army, which the Greeks destroyed at Plataea the next summer.³

For the Greek world the victory belonged above all to Athens. Its ships had saved Greece, and in 478 BC it took the lead of the Delian League, an alliance formed to free the Greek cities of the east from Persia that grew, in World History Encyclopedia's words, into an Athenian empire. Eight years later Aeschylus staged it in his tragedy The Persians.⁴

Why it ranks here: Salamis shares full marks for recognition, decisiveness and consequence with Gaugamela: it turned the largest invasion Greece ever faced back toward Asia. It goes above Gaugamela on certainty, 4 against 3, because the writers disagree on the fleets but nothing in its record is as impossible as Arrian's million; memory scores 4, since no race or statue carries its name.

Read the full story of the Battle of Salamis ›

2 Gaugamela, 331 BC

Where

Plain of Gaugamela, near Arbela (Erbil), northern Iraq

War

Alexander the Great's war against the Persian Empire

Sides

Macedonians and Greeks under Alexander vs the Persian Empire under Darius III

Strength

About 47,000 (Arrian) vs an unknown Persian total; ancient figures run from about 245,000 to over 1,000,000

Result

Decisive Macedonian victory; Darius fled

Alexander had crossed to Asia, as he wrote to Darius III, as the appointed commander of the Greeks, to take revenge for the Persian invasions of Greece. On 1 October 331 BC Darius met him on the plain of Gaugamela in northern Iraq with the last great army of his empire. Arrian gives Alexander 7,000 cavalry and about 40,000 infantry, and reports that Darius was said to have 40,000 cavalry, 1,000,000 infantry and 200 scythed chariots. The million is impossible. Other ancient writers give totals from about 245,000 to more than a million; no reliable modern figure exists, and Britannica calls some of the ancient totals fantastic.⁵

Alexander edged his line to the right, the Persian front stretched to follow, and a gap opened. He drove his Companion cavalry into it toward Darius, and Arrian says the king was the first to run. A Babylonian astronomical diary written at the time tells it the other way around: "the troops abandoned their king." Arrian's 300,000 Persian dead against about 100 of Alexander's men is as unbelievable as his million.⁶

Babylon and Susa now lay open to him, and Persepolis after them. At Persepolis Alexander burned the palace, saying, by Arrian's account, that he was avenging Xerxes' sack of Athens and its temples; at Ecbatana he paid off the Thessalian horsemen and the other Greek allies and sent them home, keeping those who chose to serve on for pay. The Greek war of revenge was over, and a Macedonian empire in Asia had taken its place.⁷

Why it ranks here: Gaugamela has full marks for recognition, decisiveness and consequence: in one day it ended the empire that had twice invaded Greece. It sits a point below Salamis because every ancient Persian total is inflated, so certainty scores 3, and memory scores 4.

Read the full story of the Battle of Gaugamela ›

3 Marathon, 490 BC

Where

Plain of Marathon, Attica, Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Darius I's expedition

Sides

Athens and Plataea vs the Persian force of Datis and Artaphernes

Strength

About 10,000 Greeks (Nepos) vs about 25,000 Persians (Lendering's estimate)

Result

Athenian victory; the Persian fleet sailed home

In 490 BC a Persian fleet under Datis and Artaphernes, having taken Eretria on Euboea, landed at Marathon to bring back Hippias, the exiled tyrant of Athens. Athens marched out with about 10,000 hoplites and Plataea joined it; Cornelius Nepos counts 10,000 men in all, 1,000 of them Plataeans, while the historian Jona Lendering reckons the Persians at about 25,000. Sparta would not march before the full moon.⁸

Herodotus says the Athenians under Miltiades charged at a run, and the Persians thought them mad to attack so few and without cavalry or archers. The strong Greek wings broke the invaders and turned on their center, and the Persians fled to the ships. He counts 6,400 Persian and 192 Athenian dead; Lendering calls the Persian figure exaggerated, since it is exactly 192 times 100 divided by 3, though the losses were clearly heavy.⁹

For the Greeks it broke a spell. Herodotus writes that the Athenians were the first Greeks who could bear the sight of Median dress, when until then the very name of the Medes had terrified them. The playwright Aeschylus fought there and wished to be remembered as a man of Marathon rather than as a poet. Myth vs fact: the runner who died announcing the victory comes from Plutarch, not Herodotus, but the story gave the world the race first run at the 1896 Athens Olympics.¹⁰

Why it ranks here: Marathon has full marks for recognition and memory, since every marathon race carries its name. It ended one expedition, not the war, because Xerxes came back ten years later, so decisiveness and consequence score 4 and keep it below the victories that ended an invasion and an empire.

Read the full story of the Battle of Marathon ›

4 Plataea, 479 BC

Where

Plain north of Plataea, Boeotia, central Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' invasion of Greece

Sides

Greek alliance under the Spartan regent Pausanias vs the Persian army of Mardonius

Strength

110,000 Greeks vs 300,000 Persians plus some 50,000 Greek allies (Herodotus); perhaps about even in fact

Result

Persian army routed and Mardonius killed; the invasion over

Salamis sank the Persian fleet but not the invasion: Mardonius wintered in Thessaly with the land army and still held much of Greece. In the summer of 479 BC the allies gathered under the Spartan regent Pausanias. Herodotus counts 110,000 Greeks, 38,700 of them hoplites, against 300,000 men in Mardonius' own army and Greek allies he guesses at 50,000. World History Encyclopedia notes the Persian figure may be inflated and the sides perhaps close in size, and Lendering calls Pausanias' force the greatest Greek army the world had yet seen.¹¹

For days neither side would cross the river Asopus. When Pausanias pulled back by night, Mardonius took it for flight and crossed; the Spartans and Tegeans turned and broke his army, Mardonius was killed, by a stone in World History Encyclopedia's account, and the Athenians took the Persian camp. Herodotus claims that fewer than 3,000 of the Persians survived, apart from 40,000 who left with Artabazus, and lists 91 Spartans, 16 Tegeans and 52 Athenians dead.¹²

This was the end of the Persian danger on Greek soil. The allies set up the Serpent Column at Delphi as their thank offering, and it still stands in the old hippodrome of Istanbul. Pausanias soon fell from grace, and the next year the war passed to the Aegean, where Athens, not Sparta, led the new Delian League.¹³

Why it ranks here: Plataea, not Salamis, actually ended the invasion: full marks for decisiveness and consequence. Salamis and Thermopylae took most of the fame, so it scores 4 for recognition on this page and 3 for memory, which keeps it below Marathon.

Read the full story of the Battle of Plataea ›

5 Chaeronea, 338 BC

Where

Plain of Chaeronea, Boeotia, central Greece

War

Philip II's war with Athens and Thebes (Fourth Sacred War)

Sides

Philip II of Macedon vs Athens, Thebes and their allies

Strength

Over 30,000 foot and 2,000 horse (Diodorus) vs about 23,400 Athenians and Thebans plus allies (modern figures, our sum)

Result

Macedonian victory; the Greek cities forced into the Corinthian League

In 340 BC the Macedonians seized a grain convoy bound for Athens, Athens declared war, and Philip II came south so fast that the Greeks could not hold Thermopylae against him. In August 338 BC Athens and Thebes, old enemies, faced him together on the plain of Chaeronea in Boeotia. Diodorus gives Philip more than 30,000 foot and at least 2,000 horse; World History Encyclopedia puts the Athenians at 10,600 and the Thebans at 12,800, the 300 of the Sacred Band among them, plus smaller allied contingents.¹⁴

How it was won depends on whom you read. Polyaenus says Philip gave ground and drew the Athenians on; Diodorus says his son Alexander, then 18, broke the line on the other wing. Diodorus counts more than 1,000 Athenians killed and at least 2,000 taken. Plutarch writes that the Sacred Band, never beaten before, died where it had faced the pikes, and that Philip wept over the 300.¹⁵

Philip put garrisons in Corinth and Thebes and forced the cities into the Corinthian League, which declared war on Persia: the city-states would no longer make war and peace on their own. Jona Lendering of Livius thinks the battle's weight is overstated, since the Third Sacred War had done the real political damage. Over the Theban dead stands the stone lion Pausanias saw, found in pieces and restored.¹⁶

Why it ranks here: Chaeronea settled the fate of every Greek state that fought it, full marks for decisiveness and consequence, and the Lion still marks the field. It lives less in memory than the Persian Wars (3), and its course rests on Diodorus, Plutarch and Polyaenus writing centuries later (certainty 3), which keeps it below Plataea.

Read the full story of Philip II of Macedon ›

6 Thermopylae, 480 BC

Where

The pass of Thermopylae, central Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' invasion of Greece

Sides

Greek alliance under King Leonidas of Sparta vs the army of Xerxes

Strength

4,000 to 7,000 Greeks vs 2,641,610 in Herodotus, about 80,000 in one modern estimate

Result

Persian victory; Greek rearguard destroyed on the third day

In 480 BC the Greek cities that refused to submit to Xerxes sent a joint force to the Hot Gates, a narrow coastal pass, while their fleet held the sea off Artemisium. Herodotus lists 300 Spartans beside Arcadians, Corinthians, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, Phocians and Locrians; modern totals run from 4,000 (Livius) to 6,000 or 7,000 (World History Encyclopedia). Herodotus puts Xerxes' fighting men at 2,641,610, an impossible figure; World History Encyclopedia gives about 80,000.¹⁷

Xerxes waited four days, then attacked for two without breaking through. A Persian column went around by a mountain path, and on the third day Leonidas sent most of the allies away and stayed with the Spartans, the Thespians, who refused to leave him, and the Thebans, whom Herodotus says he kept as hostages. Myth vs fact: it was never 300 men alone, and on the last day the 700 Thespians stood beside them.¹⁸

The pass decided nothing: the fleet left Artemisium, Athens was sacked, and Salamis and Plataea won the war. What it gave the Greek world was an ideal, free men dying for their own laws, carried by Simonides' epitaph "Go tell the Spartans" and, since 1955, by Vasos Falireas' bronze Leonidas at the pass.¹⁹

Why it ranks here: Thermopylae is the best-known Greek battle of all, full marks for recognition and memory, but as a battle of the war it was a defeat: Xerxes waited four days, needed three days of fighting to get through, and it decided nothing (decisiveness 2, consequence 3), and Herodotus' army in the millions keeps certainty at 3. It ties Issus on 38 points and goes above it on recognition.

Read the full story of Thermopylae ›

7 Issus, 333 BC

Where

The Pinarus river near Issus, Cilicia, southern Turkey

War

Alexander the Great's war against the Persian Empire

Sides

Alexander of Macedon vs Darius III, with Greek mercenaries in his center

Strength

About 47,000 Macedonians and allies vs 25,000 to 100,000 Persians (modern estimates)

Result

Persian army routed; Darius fled and his family was captured

In November 333 BC Darius III came down behind Alexander onto the narrow coastal plain of Cilicia and drew up behind the Pinarus river. Lendering gives Alexander about 41,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry; estimates drawn from the ancient writers give Darius 300,000 to 600,000 men, modern ones 25,000 to 100,000. Beside the king in the Persian center stood Greek hoplites in his pay, about 10,000 by modern estimate, so Greeks fought on both sides.²⁰

Alexander led his cavalry through the Persian left while his phalanx, crossing the river, struggled against the Greek mercenaries until the victorious right wing wheeled onto their flank. Darius fled and his army broke after him. Arrian counts about 100,000 Persian dead and, citing Ptolemy, a ravine crossed on the bodies, a figure no one need accept; Darius' mother, wife and children were taken in his camp.²¹

When Darius wrote asking for his family, Alexander answered as "commander-in-chief of the Greeks", come to take revenge for what Persia had done to Macedonia and the rest of Greece. The Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii, now in Naples, may copy a lost painting of this battle, though scholars still debate whether it shows Issus or Gaugamela.²²

Why it ranks here: Issus broke Persian power in the west, put Darius' family in Alexander's hands and lives on in the Alexander Mosaic (memory 4). It was not final, since Darius raised a new army for Gaugamela (decisiveness 3), and on the same 38 points it goes below Thermopylae on recognition.

Read the full story of the Battle of Issus ›

8 Leuctra, 371 BC

Where

Plain of Leuctra, Boeotia, near Thebes

War

War between Thebes and Sparta

Sides

Thebes and the Boeotians under Epaminondas vs Sparta and its allies under King Cleombrotus

Strength

Up to 6,000 Boeotians (Diodorus) or 7,000 hoplites and 600 horse (modern) vs about 11,000 Spartans and allies

Result

Theban victory; Cleombrotus killed and Spartan power broken

In 371 BC Sparta marched into Boeotia to break the Theban-led league, and an army that had won on land for some 200 years met the Thebans on the plain of Leuctra. Diodorus says Epaminondas led out no more than 6,000 men against an army many times larger; World History Encyclopedia gives about 7,000 Theban hoplites and 600 horse against some 11,000 Spartans and allies, 700 of them full Spartan citizens.²³

Epaminondas put his best men on the left, opposite the Spartan king. Xenophon, the earliest source but sparing with tactics, records that the Thebans massed not less than fifty shields deep against a Spartan line no more than twelve deep; Plutarch and Diodorus describe the phalanx drawn up obliquely, with Pelopidas and the Sacred Band charging in at the run. Xenophon counts almost 1,000 Lacedaemonians killed, about 400 of the 700 Spartiates; Diodorus says more than 4,000 against about 300 Boeotians.²⁴

The shock went through all Greece. Sparta's Peloponnesian League fell apart, and in 369 BC Epaminondas refounded Messene and freed the Messenian helots, whose land had been Sparta's source of manpower and wealth. Thebes was now the strongest city in Greece, and a young hostage there, Philip of Macedon, learned from its army.²⁵

Why it ranks here: Leuctra ended Sparta's supremacy and its hold on Messenia (decisiveness and consequence 4), but it is less remembered than the Persian Wars (memory 3), and the oblique order comes from Plutarch and Diodorus rather than Xenophon (certainty 3), which keeps it a point below Issus.

9 Aegospotami, 405 BC

Where

The Hellespont (Dardanelles), on the European shore opposite Lampsacus, Turkey

War

Peloponnesian War

Fleets

Sparta and its allies under Lysander vs Athens under Conon, Philocles and other generals

Strength

180 Athenian triremes vs Lysander's Peloponnesian fleet, built with Persian money (about 200 triremes in all, by one modern account)

Result

Spartan victory; all but 9 or 10 Athenian ships taken; Athens surrendered in 404 BC

By 405 BC Sparta could fight Athens at sea, because Persian money from Cyrus the Younger paid its rowers. When Lysander stormed Lampsacus on the Hellespont, the strait through which Athens' grain ships came from the Black Sea, the Athenians followed with 180 triremes and beached them on the open shore at Aegospotami, the “Goat Rivers,” across the strait.²⁶

Xenophon says the Athenians rowed out to offer battle four days running and each evening scattered ashore. On the fifth day Lysander's scouts signaled with a raised shield, and his whole fleet fell on ships that had half their rowers or none; only Conon's eight and the state trireme Paralus got away, and the rest were taken on the beach.

Diodorus tells the surprise differently: the general Philocles put out with thirty ships, deserters warned Lysander, and he chased them back onto the unmanned fleet; in his version ten triremes escaped. Plutarch counts 3,000 prisoners, and the allied council voted to kill the Athenians among them. With no fleet left, Athens was blockaded and starved. In 404 BC it accepted Sparta's terms, pulling down the Long Walls and giving up all but twelve ships, while the Peloponnesians tore the walls down to the music of flute girls, “thinking that that day was the beginning of freedom for Greece.”²⁷

Why it ranks here: Decisiveness and consequence take full marks: it ended the Peloponnesian War and the Athenian empire. Recognition 3, memory 2 and certainty 3, because Xenophon and Diodorus tell the surprise differently, hold it here. It ties Pydna on 36 points and on recognition and consequence, and goes first as the older battle.

Read the full story of Sparta vs Athens ›

10 Pydna, 168 BC

Where

The plain near Pydna, below Mount Olympus, Macedonia, Greece

War

Third Macedonian War

Sides

Rome under the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus vs Macedon under King Perseus

Strength

Perseus: 4,000 horse and not much fewer than 40,000 heavy infantry (Plutarch); the Roman total is not given in the surviving battle accounts

Result

Roman victory; 20,000 to 25,000 Macedonians killed; the Macedonian kingdom abolished

In 168 BC, in its third war with Macedon, Rome sent the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus, about sixty, against King Perseus, son of Philip V, who had 4,000 horsemen and not much fewer than 40,000 heavy infantry. On the eve of battle an eclipse of the moon terrified the Macedonian camp; the usual date puts it on 21 June and the battle on 22 June 168 BC, though the editor of Plutarch's text at LacusCurtius shows that the date is still argued.²⁸

Livy, who followed the contemporary Polybius, says the fight began by accident, when a runaway mule drew a skirmish at a stream in the afternoon. The phalanx was irresistible while it stayed compact, but on uneven ground gaps opened, Roman units worked into them, and the formation went to pieces “like a falling house”. Livy counts 20,000 Macedonian dead, 6,000 taken in Pydna and 5,000 more in flight, against fewer than 100 Romans killed; Plutarch has more than 25,000 dead and says the battle was won within an hour.

Perseus fled to Samothrace, was taken and walked in Paullus' triumph at Rome. At Amphipolis Paullus announced that Macedonia would be split into four separate cantons paying tribute to Rome: the kingdom of Philip II and Alexander was gone.²⁹

Why it ranks here: Full marks for decisiveness and consequence, since it ended Macedon as a kingdom; but it is remembered mainly as a Roman victory (recognition 3, memory 2), and Polybius' account survives only through Livy, Plutarch and fragments, so certainty 3. It ties Aegospotami on 36 points and on recognition and consequence, and goes second as the younger battle.

11 Granicus, 334 BC

Where

The river Granicus (Biga Çayı), northwestern Turkey

War

Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire

Sides

Alexander the Great vs the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, with Memnon of Rhodes and Greek mercenaries

Strength

Alexander about 30,000 to 32,000 foot and 4,500 to 5,000 horse; Persians about 20,000 horse and nearly as many mercenary foot (Arrian), or over 10,000 horse and 100,000 foot (Diodorus)

Result

Macedonian victory; western Asia Minor opened to Alexander

In the spring of 334 BC Alexander crossed into Asia with, by Arrian's count, not much more than 30,000 infantry and over 5,000 cavalry; Diodorus gives 32,000 foot and 4,500 horse. Darius III stayed in the interior. His satraps in Asia Minor overruled Memnon of Rhodes, who wanted to strip the country and avoid battle, and waited for the invader behind the river Granicus.³⁰

Here the sources split. Arrian and Plutarch have Alexander brush aside Parmenio's advice to wait for morning and charge across at once, late in the day, his horsemen fighting their way up steep, muddy banks. Diodorus says he camped opposite and crossed at dawn, deploying before the Persians could stop him, and Jona Lendering of Livius.org thinks a frontal charge up those banks impossible.

Both versions share the cavalry melee around the king: a Persian blade split his helmet, and Cleitus the Black cut off the arm of the next attacker. Arrian gives the Persians 20,000 horse and almost as many Greek mercenary foot; the mercenaries were cut down and about 2,000 taken, while the Macedonian dead come to about 115 by our sum of his figures. Arrian's translator calls Diodorus' 100,000 Persian infantry inaccurate. Sardis surrendered without a fight, and the road south lay open.³¹

Why it ranks here: Recognition 4: it is the first of Alexander's three great victories over Persia and appears on most lists. But the Great King had not yet fought, so decisiveness 3, and Arrian and Diodorus disagree on how the battle even began, certainty 3. It ties Syracuse on 35 points and goes above it on recognition.

Read the full story of Alexander the Great ›

12 Syracuse, 413 BC

Where

The Great Harbour of Syracuse and the roads inland, Sicily, Italy

War

Peloponnesian War (Athenian expedition to Sicily, 415 to 413 BC)

Sides

Athens and its allies under Nicias and Demosthenes vs Syracuse, with the Spartan Gylippus, Corinth and Sicilian allies

Strength

Athens sent 134 triremes and 5,100 hoplites in 415 BC and about 73 ships and 5,000 hoplites in 413; about 40,000 men on the final retreat (Thucydides)

Result

Athenian fleet and army destroyed; at least 7,000 prisoners; both generals put to death

In 415 BC Athens sent 134 triremes and 5,100 hoplites to Sicily, with archers, slingers and allies besides; in 413 BC Demosthenes brought about 73 more ships and some 5,000 hoplites. By then the siege of Syracuse had failed: the Spartan Gylippus had rallied the city, and the Athenian fleet was penned in the Great Harbor.³²

The Athenians tried to break out by sea. Nearly 200 ships fought inside the harbor, Thucydides writes, more than in any battle before and in the least room. They lost, and their crews refused to sail again. About 40,000 men set off by land; Demosthenes' division surrendered, 6,000 strong, and Nicias' column was destroyed at the river Asinarus.

The Syracusans killed both generals and packed the prisoners, at least 7,000 of them, into the stone quarries on scant water and grain for some seventy days, then sold all but the Athenians and the Sicilian and Italian Greeks. Plutarch adds that some won their freedom, or a meal, by reciting Euripides, whom the Sicilians loved. It was, in Thucydides' words, “to the victors most glorious and most calamitous to the vanquished”: “few of many returned home.” Athens still fought on until it lost its last fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BC.³³

Why it ranks here: Thucydides' account earns certainty 4, and the disaster turned the Peloponnesian War against Athens; but Athens fought on for nine more years, so decisiveness 4, and the name is less known than the battles of the Persian Wars, recognition 3. It ties Granicus on 35 points and goes below it on recognition.

13 Cynoscephalae, 197 BC

Where

The Cynoscephalae (“Dogs' Heads”) hills between Pharsalus and Larisa, Thessaly, Greece

War

Second Macedonian War

Sides

Rome and the Aetolian League under Titus Quinctius Flamininus vs Macedon under Philip V

Strength

Over 26,000 Romans and allies, including 6,000 Aetolian foot and 400 horse, vs a Macedonian army of about the same size (Plutarch)

Result

Roman victory; about 8,000 Macedonians killed and 5,000 captured; Philip gave up Greece

Philip V had made Macedon strong again, and in 200 BC Rome, just free of Hannibal, went to war to break his hold on Greece. In 197 BC Titus Quinctius Flamininus marched into Thessaly with over 26,000 men, 6,000 foot and 400 horse of them from the Aetolian League; Plutarch puts Philip's army at about the same size.³⁴

The two armies blundered into each other in fog on a line of rough hills called the Dogs' Heads, and the skirmish grew until both armies were fully engaged. On his right Philip charged downhill with his phalanx and drove the Romans back; on his left the phalanx, still in marching order on broken ground, gave way before the Roman elephants. Then, Polybius writes, an unnamed tribune took some twenty maniples from the winning Roman wing and fell on the rear of the victorious Macedonians, and the whole army broke.

Polybius counts about 700 Roman dead against about 8,000 Macedonians killed and at least 5,000 captured, and Plutarch gives the same Macedonian losses. Polybius used the battle for his famous comparison of legion and phalanx: unbeatable from the front on level ground, helpless once broken up. Philip kept his throne, but he had to keep out of Greece, pay 1,000 talents and give up all but ten of his ships, and at the Isthmian Games Flamininus had the Greeks proclaimed free.³⁵

Why it ranks here: Polybius' detailed account earns certainty 4, and the battle ended the Second Macedonian War; but it cut Macedon down without ending it, which Pydna did, so decisiveness 4, and recognition 3 with memory 2 leave it thirteenth on 33 points.

14 Sphacteria, 425 BC

Where

The island of Sphacteria, Bay of Pylos (Navarino), southwestern Peloponnese, Greece

War

Peloponnesian War

Sides

Athens and its Messenian allies under Demosthenes and Cleon vs Spartan hoplites under Epitadas

Strength

420 Spartan hoplites vs 800 Athenian hoplites, 800 archers, 800 light troops and the rowers of more than 70 ships (Thucydides)

Result

Athenian victory; 292 Spartans surrendered, about 120 of them Spartiates

In the spring of 425 BC the Athenian general Demosthenes fortified the headland of Pylos in Spartan Messenia. Sparta landed hoplites on the wooded island of Sphacteria across the bay, and when the Athenian fleet beat the Spartan ships, 420 of them were cut off. Sparta offered peace to save them; Cleon persuaded Athens to ask for more, and the talks failed.³⁶

After 72 days of blockade, Demosthenes landed about 800 hoplites before dawn, followed at daylight by 800 archers, as many light troops and the rowers of more than seventy ships. He held the high ground and kept away from the Spartan line, wearing it down with arrows, javelins and stones from every side, until the Spartans, their first commander dead and the second lying wounded, threw down their shields and accepted terms. Of the 420, 292 were taken alive to Athens, about 120 of them Spartiates.

Nothing in the war, Thucydides writes, so astonished the Greeks: they had believed that neither hunger nor force could make Spartans give up their arms. Myth vs fact: the famous Spartans who never surrendered did surrender here, and Athens kept them as hostages against any invasion of Attica, sending repeated Spartan embassies away empty-handed. Livius.org pictures a bronze Spartan shield captured at Sphacteria, shown in the Agora at Athens.³⁷

Why it ranks here: The surrender broke Sparta's aura and gave Athens its best bargaining chip, and Thucydides' detailed account earns certainty 4; but it shaped the war without deciding it, so decisiveness and consequence 3, and with recognition 3 it sits fourteenth on 31 points.

15 Hydaspes, 326 BC

Where

The Hydaspes (Jhelum) river, Punjab, Pakistan

War

Alexander's Indian campaign

Sides

Alexander the Great, with his Indian ally the raja of Taxila, vs King Porus

Strength

Alexander's striking force about 6,000 foot and 5,000 horse, more under Craterus across the river; Porus 30,000 foot, 4,000 horse, 300 chariots and 200 elephants by Arrian's count, 20,000 to 50,000 foot in modern estimates

Result

Macedonian victory; Porus captured and restored as king

In May 326 BC Alexander reached the Hydaspes, today's Jhelum, swollen by snowmelt and early rain, and found King Porus and his elephants on the far bank. On a stormy night he led a picked force upstream and crossed at dawn, leaving Craterus opposite the Indian camp. Arrian puts the striking force at about 6,000 foot and 5,000 horse.³⁸

Porus drew up, by Arrian's count, 30,000 infantry, 4,000 horse, 300 chariots and 200 elephants spaced along his front. Alexander's cavalry broke the Indian horse, the phalanx pressed in among the elephants, and the maddened animals trampled both sides until the hemmed-in Indian army collapsed and Craterus crossed to join the pursuit. Arrian has nearly 20,000 Indian foot and 3,000 horse killed, against about 310 Macedonians by our sum of his figures; Diodorus gives over 12,000 Indian dead and 280 Macedonian horsemen and more than 700 foot.

Asked how he wished to be treated, the wounded Porus answered: “Treat me, Alexander, in a kingly way!” Alexander gave him back his kingdom and enlarged it. Jona Lendering of Livius.org writes that the famous battle was in fact a skirmish, since Alexander used only a sixth of his forces. Months later, at the Hyphasis, his army refused to go farther, and he turned back.³⁹

Why it ranks here: Scored as in our ancient guide: Alexander's battle with Porus and his elephants is fairly well known and Porus' reply is still quoted (recognition and memory 3), but it led nowhere, since his army soon refused to go farther east, and the numbers rest on Arrian and Diodorus, certainty 3. It ties Ipsus, Himera and Corinth on 30 points and takes fifteenth on recognition.

Read the full story of the Hydaspes ›