The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate Greece. The Greek army inflicted a crushing defeat on the more numerous Persians, marking a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars.
Rafael Sabatini was an Italian-born British writer of romance and adventure novels.
The Battle of Leuctra was fought on 6 July 371 BC between the Boeotians led by the Thebans, and the Spartans along with their allies amidst the post–Corinthian War conflict. The battle took place in the vicinity of Leuctra, a village in Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae. The Theban victory shattered Sparta's immense influence over the Greek peninsula, which Sparta had gained with its victory in the Peloponnesian War a generation earlier.
David Andrew Gemmell was a British author of heroic fantasy, best known for his debut novel, Legend. A former journalist and newspaper editor, Gemmell had his first work of fiction published in 1984. He went on to write over thirty novels. Gemmell's works display violence, yet also explore themes of honour, loyalty and redemption. There is always a strong heroic theme but nearly always the heroes are flawed in some way. With over one million copies sold, his work continues to sell worldwide.
Dionysius I or Dionysius the Elder was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily. He conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies. He was regarded by the ancients as an example of the worst kind of despot: cruel, suspicious, and vindictive.
The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek-inhabited region of Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike.
Mardonius was a leading Persian military commander during the Persian Wars with Greece in the early 5th century BC who died at the Battle of Plataea.
Sir John Hawkwood was an English soldier who served as a mercenary leader or condottiero in Italy. As his name was difficult to pronounce for non-English-speaking contemporaries, there are many variations of it in the historical record. He often referred to himself as Haukevvod and in Italy, he was known as Giovanni Acuto, literally meaning "John Sharp" in reference to his "cleverness or cunning". His name was Latinised as Johannes Acutus. Other recorded forms are Aucgunctur, Haughd, Hauvod, Hankelvode, Augudh, Auchevud, Haukwode and Haucod. His exploits made him a man shrouded in myth in both England and Italy. Much of his enduring fame results from the surviving large and prominent fresco portrait of him in the Duomo, Florence, made in 1436 by Paolo Uccello, seen every year by 4½ million tourists.
The White Company is a historical adventure by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, set during the Hundred Years' War. The story is set in England, France and Spain, in the years 1366 and 1367, against the background of the campaign of Edward the Black Prince, to restore Peter of Castile to the throne of the Kingdom of Castile. The climax of the book occurs before the Battle of Nájera. Doyle became inspired to write the novel after attending a lecture on the Middle Ages in 1889. After extensive research, The White Company was published in serialised form in 1891 in The Cornhill Magazine. Additionally, the book is considered a companion to Doyle's 1905–06 Sir Nigel, which explores the early campaigns of Sir Nigel Loring and Samkin Aylward.
The siege of Gythium was fought in 195 BC between Sparta and the coalition of Rome, Rhodes, the Achaean League, and Pergamum. As the port of Gythium was an important Spartan base, the allies decided to capture it before they advanced inland to Sparta. The Romans and the Achaeans were joined outside the city by the Pergamese and Rhodian fleets. The Spartans held out, but one of the joint commanders, Dexagoridas, decided to surrender the city to the Roman legate. When Gorgopas, the other commander, found out, he killed Dexagoridas and took sole command of the city. After Dexagoridas' murder, the Spartans held out more vigorously. However, Titus Quinctius Flamininus of the allied forces arrived with 4,000 more men and the Spartans decided to surrender the city on the condition that the garrison could leave unharmed. The result of this siege forced Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, to abandon the surrounding land and withdraw to the city of Sparta. Later that year, Sparta capitulated to the allies.
Thomas Holland is an English author and popular historian who has published best-selling books on topics including classical and medieval history, and the origins of Islam.
The Book of the Dun Cow (1978) is a fantasy novel by Walter Wangerin Jr. It is loosely based upon the beast fable of Chanticleer and the Fox adapted from the story of "The Nun's Priest's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It has two sequels.
Gaius Julius Caesar, one of the most influential men in world history, has frequently appeared in literary and artistic works since ancient times.
Azincourt is an historical novel written by Bernard Cornwell, published in 2008. The book relates the events leading to the Battle of Agincourt through its protagonist Nicholas Hook. In the United States, it was published under the title Agincourt.
The Mongoliad is a fictional narrative set in the Foreworld Saga, a secret history transmedia franchise developed by the Subutai Corporation. The Mongoliad was originally released in a serialized format online, and via a series of iOS and Android apps, but was restructured and re-edited for a definitive edition released via the Amazon Publishing imprint 47North, both in print and in Kindle format. Fan-submitted Foreworld stories were published via Amazon's Kindle Worlds imprint.
Arimnestos was the commander of the Plataean contingent at the battles of Marathon and Plataea during the Greco-Persian Wars.
The Siege of Plataea took place in 429–427 BC, during the Peloponnesian War. At the beginning of the conflict, the Thebans attacked the city of Plataea, an Athenian ally on the border between Boeotia and Attica. The initial Theban attempt to capture the city failed, but in 429 BC the Thebans' allies, the Spartans under their king Archidamus II, laid siege to the city. Left unaided by Athens, the Plataeans finally surrendered in 428 BC. Plataea was razed to the ground by the Thebans, and was not restored until after 338 BC by Philip II of Macedon.
Three is an American comic book miniseries created by Kieron Gillen, Ryan Kelly and Jordie Bellaire. It was published monthly by Image Comics between October 2013 and February 2014 before being released as a single volume in April 2014. It follows three Helots in ancient Sparta fleeing from an army of Spartiates.
