Battles of Antiquity

Question 1

Xerxes was so confident in victory that he watched which battle from a throne on the slopes of Mount Aegaleus? It was a defeat for the Persians: the Persian admiral Ariabignes was killed in hand-to-hand combat, and the Queen of Halicarnassus, Artemisia, had to sink some of her allies’ ships to escape.

Answer 1

Battle of Salamis (480 BCE)

Question 2

One of the earliest battles in recorded history (1274 BCE), this battle was fought near the Orontes River in what is now Syria between Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king Muwatalli II

Answer 2

Battle of Kadesh

Question 3

What 31 BCE battle is often considered to signal the end of the Roman Republic?

Answer 3

Battle of Actium

Following his victory in the battle, Octavian titled himself Princeps, and later Augustus.

Question 4

What 48 BCE battle was the decisive battle between Gaius Julius Caesar’s legions and the army of the republic under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (“Pompey the Great”)?

Answer 4

Battle of Pharsalus

Question 5

Following the Battle of Cannae (216 BCE), what strategy did the the Romans adopt that eventually wore down Hannibal’s army and forced the Carthaginians to leave Italy?

Answer 5

The Fabian strategy, in which battles are avoided in favor of a war of attrition

Question 6

Who fought the Battle of Issus (333 BCE) along the Pinarus River near what is now Iskenderun in Turkey’s Hatay province? (The battle was the subject of a 1528 painting by Albrecht Altdorfer, the leader of the Danube School.)

Answer 6

Alexander the Great and Darius III (of the Persian Empire)

(The battle ended with Darius fleeing the field and the capture of his tent and family.)

Question 7

During which battle did Maxentius, who had usurped the throne of the western half of the Roman Empire from Constantine, drown in the Tiber river?

Answer 7

Battle of Milvian Bridge (312 CE)

Question 8

What was the second major battle between Alexander the Great and the Persian Empire, and the first to feature Darius III?

Answer 8

Battle of Issus (333 BCE)

(It followed the Battle of Granicus.)

Question 9

What 53 BCE battle between the Roman Republic and Parthian Empire, one of the most crushing defeats in Roman history, ended the First Triumvirate after Crassus’s death?

Answer 9

Battle of Carrhae

Question 10

What 480 BCE Greek and Persian naval battle took place simultaneously with the more famous land battle at Thermopylae?

Answer 10

Battle of Artemisium

Question 11

What battle was fought in 326 BCE between Alexander the Great and King Porus of the Paurava kingdom on the banks of a monsoon-swollen river in Punjab? It was the most costly battle fought by the Macedonians, though they were victorious because Alexander’s river-crossing flanked the opposing army?

Answer 11

Battle of the Hydaspes
(the Hydaspes was the Greek name for the river)

Question 12

Who commanded Octavian’s fleet at the Battle of Actium (31 BCE), which consisted of small, nimble Liburnian ships contrasted with Antony’s fleet of massive Quinqueremes?

Answer 12

Marcus Agrippa

Question 13

What battle stopped the Huns’ advance into Gaul? The Roman army was commanded by Flavius Aetius and included Visigoths under Theodoric I. The Hunnic army was led by Attila

Answer 13

The Battle of Chalons (or Catalaunian Fields) (451 CE)

Question 14

Prior to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 CE), Constantine supposedly had a vision of God promising victory to his forces if he painted his shields with what Christian symbol?

Answer 14

Chi-Rho

Question 15

What battle on the Hellespont (Dardanelles) ended the Peloponnesian War and the Athenian Empire?

Answer 15

Battle of Aegospotami (405 BCE)

Question 16

What 338 BCE battle between Philip II of Macedon and an alliance of some of the Greek city-states led by Athens and Thebes was the culmination of Philip’s final campaigns, resulting in a decisive victory for the Macedonians?

Answer 16

Battle of Chaeronea

Question 17

Who reluctantly engaged Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BCE? The battle ended in his defeat and he fled, disguised as an ordinary citizen. (He was later assassinated in Egypt by order of Ptolemy XIII.)

Answer 17

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (“Pompey the Great”)

Question 18

What early battle between the Egyptians and Hittites was probably the largest chariot battle in history, with over 5000 chariots engaged?

Answer 18

Battle of Kadesh

Question 19

Who were the commanders at the Battle of Adrianople (378 CE)?

Answer 19

The Romans were led by the eastern emperor Valens, while the Goths were led by Fritigern.

(Eager for glory, Valens decided not to wait on reinforcements from the western emperor Gratian, and instead attacked the Goths. In the battle, over two-thirds of the Roman army was killed, including Valens.)

Question 20

Who led the Persian army at the time of Xerxes I’s 480-479 BCE invasion of Greece (beginning with the Battle of Thermopylae)?

Answer 20

Mardonius

Question 21

At what battle, fought near what is now Preveza in the Ambracian Gulf of Greece, did Octavian’s fleet defeat the combined forces of Cleopatra and Mark Antony?

Answer 21

Battle of Actium (31 BCE)

Question 22

What was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian and the leaders of Julius Caesar’s assassination, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus? (Brutus faced Octavian, while Antony’s forces fought those of Cassius.)

Answer 22

Battle of Philippi (42 BCE)

Question 23

In what battle did King Leonidas and his Spartan troops put up a heroic defense of the pass (the “hot gates”), although they were betrayed by Ephialtes, who told the Persians about a path that led behind the Spartans?

Answer 23

Thermopylae (480 BCE)

Question 24

What Athenian general devised a plan to lure the large, slow Persian ships into the narrow straits at the Battle of Salamis, where the Greek ships were able to outmaneuver and destroy much of the Persian fleet?

Answer 24

Themistocles

Question 25

Who were the commanders at the Battle of Chalons (or Catalaunian Fields) (451 CE)?

Answer 25

The Roman army was commanded by Flavius Aetius and included Visigoths under Theodoric I. The Hunnic army was led by Attila

Question 26

After a setback at the Battle of Arginusae in 406 BCE, the Spartans reinstated Lysander as the commander of their fleet, who won them what victory for Sparta? Only a fraction of the Athenian fleet survived, including the general Conon, and the ship Paralus, which brought the news of defeat to Athens.

Answer 26

Battle of Aegospotami (405 BCE) on the Hellespont

Question 27

At what battle of 52 BCE did Julius Caesar defeat the Celtic peoples of Gaul, establishing Roman rule of the lands beyond the Alps?

Answer 27

Battle of Alesia

Question 28

Who were the commanders at the Battle of Alesia (52 BCE)?

Answer 28

Julius Caesar and Vercingetorix

Commius commanded the Gaulish relief army. The Romans built a wall to surround Alesia (a “circumvallation”) and a second wall around that (a “contravallation”) to protect themselves from the Gaulish relief army.

Question 29

The Battle of Marathon (490 BCE) ended whose invasion of mainland Greece?

Answer 29

Persian King Darius I

(The defeated Persian commanders were Datis and Artaphernes.)

Question 30

What was the first battle of the second Persian invasion of Greece, under Xerxes I and his general Mardonius?

Answer 30

Thermopylae (480 BCE)

Question 31

Whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC and the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC?

Answer 31

King Pyrrhus of Epirus

(A Pyrrhic victory is thus a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat.)

Question 32

What battle, a decisive victory for the Miltiades and the Athenians (the Spartans stayed name to celebrate a religious festival), ended Persian King Darius I’s invasion of mainland Greece?

Answer 32

The Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)

(Among the few Athenian dead of the battle were archon Callimachus and the general Stesilaos.)

Question 33

What 371 BCE Theban victory shattered Sparta’s immense influence over the Greek peninsula, which Sparta had gained after its victory in the Peloponnesian War?

Answer 33

Battle of Leuctra

Question 34

During which naval battle of 480 BCE were the greater Persian numbers an active hindrance in the cramped conditions of the Straits, leading to a decisive Greek victory?

Answer 34

Battle of Salamis

Question 35

Julius Caesar beseiged Alesia following what Roman defeat in the Gallic Wars?

Answer 35

Battle of Gergovia

Question 36

During which battle did an alliance of Germanic tribes ambush and destroy three Roman legions and their auxiliaries, marking the last attempt of the Romans to conquer the Germanic territories east of the Rhine river?

Answer 36

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (aka the Varian Disaster) (9 CE)

Question 37

What Punjabi ruler of the Paurava kingdom was reinstated by Alexander as one of his satraps following his defeat by Alexander at the Battle of the Hydaspes?

Answer 37

King Porus

Question 38

Whose victory at the Battle of the Great Plains in 203 BCE forced Hannibal to leave Italy and return to North Africa for the final showdown of the Second Punic War at the Battle of Zama?

Answer 38

Scipio Africanus

Question 39

What 479 BCE battle (which allegedly occurred on the same day as the Battle of Plataea) destroyed Xerxes I’s Persian navy?

Answer 39

Battle of Mycale

Question 40

What battle near what is now Edirne, Turkey signalled the beginning of the spread of Germanic peoples into the Western Roman Empire? Over two-thirds of the Roman army was killed, including the eastern emperor Valens. (Ammianus Marcellinus ended his history of the Roman Empire with the battle.)

Answer 40

Battle of Adrianople (378 CE)

Question 41

Who fought the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BCE), fought near the Orontes River in what is now Syria?

Answer 41

The Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king Muwatalli II.
(Although Ramses proclaimed a great victory for himself, he was lucky to achieve a stalemate.)

Question 42

What member of the First Triumvirate and the wealthiest man in Rome led his army to one of the most crushing defeats in Roman history against the Parthian Empire in 53 BCE?

Answer 42

Crassus

Question 43

What Greek messenger ran to Athens with news of the victory at Marathon (490 BCE) but collapsed upon arrival?

Answer 43

Pheidippides

Question 44

What was the final battle of the Second Punic War, fought near Carthage in what is now Tunisia? Scipio’s strategy of opening up his lines to allow Carthaginian elephants through without harming his troops, led to a complete Roman victory. (Also, the Numidian king Masinissa switched sides, and brought his considerable cavalry force to join the Romans.)

Answer 44

Battle of Zama (202 BCE)

Question 45

Who commanded the Greek troops at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE)?

Answer 45

The King of Sparta, King Leonidas

(The battle was part of the Athenian General Themistocles’ plan to halt the advance of the Persians.)

Question 46

Who defeated the Romans, led by the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro, at the Battle of Cannae (216 BCE)?

Answer 46

Carthaginians, led by Hannibal

Question 47

Prior to which battle did Constantine supposedly have a vision of God promising victory to his forces if he painted his shields with the Chi-Rho Christian symbol?

Answer 47

Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 CE)

Question 48

What was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece, fought in 479 BCE between the alliance of the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I? The Persian commander Mardonius was killed and a large portion of the Persian army was trapped in its camp and slaughtered.

Answer 48

Battle of Plataea

Question 49

What battle was the largest battle of the Second Punic War and one of the worst defeats in Roman history?

Answer 49

Battle of Cannae (216 BCE)

Question 50

What 331 BCE battle was the decisive battle of Alexander the Great’s invasion of the Darius III’s Persian Achaemenid Empire?

Answer 50

The Battle of Gaugamela, also called the Battle of Arbela

Question 51

The Battle of Aegospotami (405 BCE) ended which war?

Answer 51

Peloponnesian War

(which also ended the Athenian empire: following the battle, the Spartans besieged Athens and forced its surrender)