warfare, attitudes to (Greek and Hellenistic)
warfare, attitudes to (Greek and Hellenistic)Homer's Iliad, a poem about war, does not glorify war: it celebrates martial prowess but also portrays the sufferings caused by war, and Ares, god of war, is rebuked by Zeus as the most hateful of all the gods, to whom strife, wars, and slaughter are forever dear (Il 5. 890f.). The same ambivalence pervades Greek attitudes to warfare. War in Greece was a recurring phenomenon, and conflicts multiplied in numbers and scale as larger power blocks emerged. Greek history (see Greece (history)) divides according to major conflicts: the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War and its sequels, the rise of Macedonia, Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia and the wars of the successor kingdoms. These provide the subject-matter of much of Greek historical writing. There were also...
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