Kings and Generals

The Minoans of Crete build palaces at Knossos and Phaistos, dominate Aegean sea trade, inspire the myth of King Minos and the Labyrinth, and leave behind the mysteries of Linear A.

The historicity of the Trojan War is examined through the Iliad of Homer and the Mycenaean and Hittite civilizations, asking whether Hector, Achilles, Helen and Paris were real at the end of the Bronze Age.

Between the fall of Mycenaean Greece and the rise of the poleis lies the Geometric Age, roughly 1100 to 700 BCE, when Greek communities migrated across Asia Minor and Cyprus and had contact with the Phoenicians.

Greek and Persian civilizations fight for millennia, and the battle of Salamis in 480 BC stands as the central defence of free Greece against the Persian invasion.

The Armies and Tactics series makes its debut by covering how the armies, tactics, formations and weaponry of the ancient Greeks changed during the Persian invasions.

Sparta, a land power with little naval experience, defeats Athens and its Delian League through alliances, economics and Persian gold, after the destruction of Melos and the disastrous Sicilian Expedition drained Athenian resources.

During the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the hoplite remains dominant but lighter versions emerge, and Hellenic city-states begin turning to cavalry and skirmishers to gain the upper hand.

This edition on the Ancient Greek Navies focuses on Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian Wars, covering which ships were used, the tactics applied, and who financed and manned the fleets.

Demosthenes, the Athenian politician, leads the resistance against Philip II and Alexander the Great and against Macedonian expansion into the other Greek states.

Philip II, father of Alexander III and one of Macedonia's most important rulers, is examined here for his exceptional diplomatic abilities.

Alongside the formidable Companions and the Macedonian phalanx, Alexander the Great fielded many further units drawn from beyond his Macedonians, many of which specialized in roles critical to some of his greatest military triumphs.

Continuing the series on the armies and tactics of the Ancient Greeks, this covers the logistics of the Macedonian Armies and how the armies of Alexander the Great and Philip traveled and were supplied.

After Philip II of Macedon reformed the infantry, cavalry and siege weapons, his son Alexander the Great built on that work, creating an army that conquered the Achaemenid Empire with elite units like the Silver Shields and Royal Agema.

Philip II, learning from Epaminondas, Pelopidas and Iphicrates, reforms his armies into the Macedonian phalanx, and this covers how the pezhetairoi were trained and their panoply and combat role.

Philip II reforms his Companion Cavalry and light Prodromoi cavalry, and Polyidus, head of his engineers, and his successors create many siege weapons that later help Philip and Alexander in their conquests.

A full documentary on Pyrrhus, a leading player in the second round of the Diadochi of Alexander the Great, who fought Romans, Carthaginians and Greeks across battles from Heraclea and Asculum to Sparta and Argos.

Pyrrhus of Epirus returns to Greece after Italy proved untenable, defeated by the Romans at Beneventum, and fights final wars against the Macedonians, Spartans and Argives.

Alexander the Great's conquests spread Hellenization from Egypt to China, and the easternmost Greek state, Bactria, wins independence from the Seleucid Empire and blends with the Buddhist Mahayana.

After defeating the Roman legions at Heraclea, the Greek king Pyrrhus and his phalanx fight Rome again at Asculum, then attack the Carthaginians on Sicily.

Pyrrhus of Epirus, born soon after the death of his relative Alexander the Great, grows up during the wars of the Diadochi and learns war under Alexander's generals.

Pyrrhus of Epirus, already fighting in the wars of the Diadochi, is invited by the Greek city of Tarentum to defend it against Rome, and the resulting war opens at Heraclea.

The Greeks of the Dayuan region, discovered by China during Zhang Qian's expedition, fight the Han dynasty in the War of the Heavenly Horses, 104 to 101 BC, which contributed to the creation of the Silk Road.

From 214 to 146 BCE the Roman Republic dismantled Greece by exploiting rivalries between Macedon, the Aetolian League, the Achaean League, Pergamon, Rhodes and the Seleucids, and beating the phalanx at Cynoscephalae and Pydna.

This opens the series on the Macedonian Wars, crucial for the Roman republic and the Hellenic states, leading to the battles of Cynoscephalae and Pydna and the Greco-Roman world that followed.

An early documentary on the Roman - Seleucid Syrian War and the battles of Thermopylae and Magnesia, a conflict that reshaped the map of the Eastern Mediterranean in the II century BC.

Kings and Generals' Roman - Macedonian Wars series concludes with the Third Macedonian War and the battle of Pydna, fought in 168 BC.

Kings and Generals' Roman - Macedonian Wars series continues with the Third Macedonian War and the battle of Callinicus, fought in 171 BC.

The manipular Roman legion, which fought the Carthaginian army, is matched against the Macedonian phalanx that Philip created, across the battles of Asculum, Heraclea, Cynoscephalae and Pydna.

The Roman Republic and the Seleucid empire vie for control over Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in the War of Antiochus, fought at Thermopylae and Magnesia with a quarter of a million warriors.

A guide to the great historians of Ancient Greece: Herodotus, the Father of History, Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch's Parallel Lives and Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander.

This traces the ancient origins of Macedonia before it became an empire under Philip and Alexander, with a focus on its relationship with the other Hellenic states.

Beyond the polis, this covers the Leagues and Federations of the Ancient Greek world and how great states like Athens, Sparta, Macedon and Thebes interacted within them to form hegemonies.

The fall of the Ptolemies, how the Roman emperors treated Alexander's tomb, what happened to the tale of his corpse under Christian, Muslim, Ottoman and Napoleonic rule of Alexandria, and the theories that surround both to this day.

Alexander the Great died on 11 June 323 BC and his body became a continuing source of war, intrigue and mystery; part one of two on its importance for the Diadochi, the Ptolemies, the Romans and the Christians.

This covers the siege technologies the Greeks used before the reforms of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great, from the siege engines themselves to the defenses raised against them.