Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
were unable to break the Spartan hold on this strategic pass for three days. When the Spartans finally suc-
cumbed, the Persians captured and burned Athens.
But the war's decisive battle came at sea. Athens had built a large fleet that was massed in the narrow
channel between Greece and the small island of Salamis, ten miles east of Athens. Once again, despite
their numerical advantage, the Persians suffered a major defeat. The Athenians had earned an enormous
victory that propelled Athens to the position of the central power of the Greek city-states. Although fight-
ing between Greece and Persia would continue, Persia was essentially broken as a threat to Europe, allow-
ing the flowering of the Greek period. In a much grander sense, it marked the beginnings of a European
tradition that was distinct from Asia and would constitute the beginnings of Western civilization.
Cannae, Zama After the Greeks and Persians settled down, the next ancient superpower confrontation
occurred between the Romans and their rivals for control of the Mediterranean, the Carthaginians. A
coastal city near Tunis in present-day Tunisia, Carthage had been settled for hundreds of years by the
Phoenicians, the great sailing empire based in what is now Lebanon. Three Punic Wars ( Punic is Latin for
“Phoenician”) were fought between Rome and Carthage, lasting over one hundred years between 264 and
146 BC. In the first of these, Rome was able to evict Carthage from the island of Sicily.
From a base in Spain, then part of Carthage, the Carthaginian general Hannibal (247-152 BC ) took a
mixed force of North Africans, Spaniards, and Gauls and made a dramatic march, traveling with North
African elephants (a breed now extinct) across the South of France and over the Alps in the winter of 218
BC. This audacious march, followed by quick victories in northern Italy, left Rome amazed and exposed to
attack.
In need of supplies, Hannibal moved his army to Cannae, a major food depot on Italy's southeast coast,
the center of Rome's corn-growing province. There, in 216 BC , Hannibal's army confronted the largest Ro-
man army ever put in the field. But his tactic of drawing in the larger enemy and then encircling them, later
called the “double envelopment,” resulted in a humiliating loss for Rome and has since been studied and
used by generations of soldiers. Despite his military success, Hannibal was unable to complete the victory
over Rome. Trapped in the “toe” of Italy's “boot,” he was eventually called back to Carthage when Roman
forces attacked the city in 203 BC. Defeated by the Roman general Scipio at the battle of nearby Zama,
Hannibal went into exile and eventually committed suicide.
In the third Punic War (146 BC ), Rome finally defeated Carthage, reducing the city to a pile of rubble,
plowing it under and enslaving the survivors. North Africa became part of the province of Africa in the
expanding Roman Empire.
Hastings If, like most Americans, you received an “old school” education, 1066 is one of those dates
you were supposed to lock into your brain. This is the year of the invasion of England by William the
Conqueror (1027-87) of Normandy (France), a distant relative of the English king Edward the Confessor.
William claimed the English throne that had been taken by Harold Godwin, the country's most powerful
Anglo-Saxon nobleman, who had already turned back one threat to the throne by killing the king of Nor-
way in battle.
William landed his force of knights and men-at-arms and marched to Hastings on England's southeast
coast, where he quickly built a timber castle as a base. On October 14, the furious day-long battle, depicted
in the famed Bayeux Tapestry, came to a close when the Norman archers rained arrows straight down
on the Anglo-Saxons. In the following close combat, King Harold was hacked to death and the leader-
less Anglo-Saxon forces disintegrated. On Christmas Day, 1066, William was crowned king of England
in Westminster Abbey and began a century of Norman rule over England that would extend into much of
Europe and play a large part in the Crusades to recapture the Holy Land.
Acre, Arsuf The Crusades began in 1095 after the earlier capture of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks
brought a call from the pope to recover the Holy Lands of Palestine from the Muslims. The Europeans were
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