Ancient Siege Warfare

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Indiana University Press, 1999 - 419 pages
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Siege warfare was the most brutal form of war in the ancient world. Typically involving whole urban societies, ancient siege warfare often ended in the sack of a city and the massacre or enslavement of entire populations. Assyrian emperors, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and the future Roman emperor Titus all commanded great sieges that ended in fearsome slaughters. This book examines the origins of such unleashed violence and shows how the methods of siege warfare devalued the skills of traditional warriors as well as the shared values of honor and prowess that limited the violence of traditional field battles.

Siege warfare was the only form of war in the ancient world in which the presence of women was common. This book pays major attention to their role in sieges, as both participants and victims, and to the way their presence affected the nature of siege warfare. The book also examines the social and moral chaos of siege warfare as the major theme in its representation in ancient literature. The Bible, Assyrian palace records, and Greek and Roman literature contain horrifying accounts of siege warfare. Ancient Hebrew prophets and Greek poets such as Homer and Euripides described it as a world without limits or structure or morality, in which men violated deep-seated taboos about sex, pregnancy, and death.

 

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Table des matières

Philip II and Alexander the Great
197
Treatment of Captured Cities
227
Demetrius the Besieger
237
PART FIVE THE ROMANS
249
Early Sieges and the Punic Wars
251
The Age of Imperialism
286
Treatment of Captured Cities
323
EPILOGUE
352

Early Sieges through the Peloponnesian War
89
Treatment of Captured Cities
135
Dionysius I
163
PART FOUR THE MACEDONIANS
195
NOTES
357
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
401
INDEX
407
Droits d'auteur

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Fréquemment cités

Page 65 - ... afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears...
Page 361 - Harfleur, Till in her ashes she lie buried. The gates of mercy shall be all shut up ; ' And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand shall range With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass Your fresh fair virgins, and your flowering infants.
Page 82 - Fell 7 [This disaster] happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God who had brought them...
Page 61 - When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. "And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you.
Page 134 - So will one speak of you; and for you it will be yet a fresh grief, to be widowed of such a man who could fight off the day of your slavery. But may I be dead and the piled earth hide me under before I hear you crying and know by this that they drag you captive.
Page 65 - They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.
Page 63 - Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days.
Page 63 - My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God : but the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight.
Page 153 - As a woman weeps, lying over the body of her dear husband, who fell fighting for her city and people as he tried to beat off the pitiless day from city and children; she sees him dying and gasping for breath, and winding her body about him she cries high and shrill, while the men behind her, hitting her with their spear butts on the back and the shoulders, force her up and lead her away into slavery, to have hard work and sorrow, and her cheeks are wracked with pitiful weeping.

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À propos de l'auteur (1999)

Kern is Professor of History at Indiana University Northwest.

Informations bibliographiques