rom the time of the first recorded battle in human history, the battle of Megiddo in 1469 b.c. when the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmoses III crushed a rebellion of local kingdoms, the land now known as Israel has been fought over by many peoples.
To the advantage and misfortune of those who have lived there, the area is located on the natural trade and invasion routes between the great empires that rose and fell over the centuries in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia. Control of the region thus gave great military advantage to its possessors, and ensured that war would be such a constant factor in local history that the Bible would single out for special mention the rare periods of peace under a righteous leader or the protection of God (1 Sam 7.14; 1 Kgs 5.4,12; 2 Kgs 20.19; 2 Chr 14.1,6).
The types of warfare practiced throughout the history of the region ranged from small feuds and tribal raids to full-scale battles involving hundreds of thousands of men and assaults on walled cities by armies equipped with large war machines.
In general, combat between groups began as hand-to-hand fighting with clubs, spears, and axes. Longer ranged weapons were developed (also called missile, or projectile weapons): slings, bows, and throwing spears (or javelins). Later, most of these hand and missile weapons were improved and adapted to use with horses and horse-drawn war chariots, adding the speed and power of a massed cavalry charge to their already deadly effect. The final development came with the use of complicated pieces of mobile artillery like catapults that could hurl large stones, arrows, or flaming materials to destroy enemy armies and cities. Any of these weapons from club to catapult could be present at the same time, even in the same battle.
Stone Age
Between 12,000 and 8,000 b.c., a series of revolutionary new weapons made their first appearances throughout the Mediterranean region: the bow, the sling, the stone dagger, and the mace (or war club). Although their exact origins are unknown, they were soon in general use throughout the region. The bow and sling suddenly made it possible to kill an enemy at a much greater distance than before, without the need to fight at close range. They were weapons that could be quickly reloaded with easily carried projectiles and fired repeatedly. During this period, crude paintings begin to appear on cave walls of organized groups of men shooting arrows at animals, and, at each other as well, perhaps the first “war” art.
The simple bow could fire a stone-pointed reed arrow out to a range of about one hundred yards. The sling consisted of a small open pouch of skin or fabric connected between two long cords. A stone was placed in the pouch and the sling was then whirled above the head of the user by the cord ends. When one cord was released, the stone flew out with great speed and accuracy to about two hundred yards. Both of these new weapons were time-consuming to make and master, but gave relatively weak opponents the ability to kill stronger, better armed and armored enemies. This was the advantage that the shepherd boy David was aware of when he accepted the giant Philistine, Goliath's, challenge to do battle (1 Sam 17.48-51).
The dagger and mace were for hand-to-hand combat. A stone blade, chipped skillfully down to a fine edge and point, and then securely fastened to a wooden or bone handle, made a much more easily used weapon than a sharp stone gripped in the palm of the hand, and was the forerunner of the hilted metal sword. The mace, a war club with a tapered handle flaring out into a heavily weighted striking head, was likewise much more effective than the simple club that preceded it.
Walled towns begin to appear during this period. Jericho, on the west bank of the Jordan River just north of the Dead Sea, is important because it is one of the first examples in history of a fortified city. By 7000 b.c., before the rise of any of the Mesopotamian or Egyptian empires, the people living in Jericho had built strong walls fronted by a 30-foot wide moat to protect themselves from being the victims of organized attack. Clearly, any of the estimated two thousand inhabitants of the enclosed ten acre site could have stood protected on the top of the 13-foot high walls, or on the 28-foot tall tower that rose out of one section of the wall, raining their own arrows, spears, or rocks down on any exposed attackers.
The Metal Age
Around 8000 b.c., mankind began to learn how to work metal, starting with copper, and soon turned this new knowledge to war. At first, copper in its raw, mineral state was simply hammered into new shapes. By about 4000 b.c., methods of refining metals by smelting them had become widely known. Bronze, a combination of copper and tin smelted together and shaped by being cast in a mold or forged in a blacksmith's shop, began to replace copper as a military metal after about 3000 b.c. Bronze was harder and more durable than copper, and could be used for longer swords that would not break so easily at the hilt. Larger axe heads and spear points with sockets at their bases could be more securely attached to their wooden handles so that they too would not fall apart so easily in combat.
By 2000 b.c., raw iron was being worked, followed by the smelting and refining of the metal by about 1400 b.c. in southeastern Turkey. Weapons that had been made of bronze were now made of even harder iron. Knowledge of the working of the metal gave some ancient peoples a brief, local advantage (1 Sam 13.19-22). Iron deposits were common enough in the region that iron weapons were eventually available not only to large armies but to ordinary people, making local militias more effective in battle.
The First Armies
Much of the early military history of the ancient world is unknown to us. The few accounts of battles and wars that do exist tend to be the boasting and exaggerations of pharaohs and kings. It was not until later Greek and Roman times that the writings of the first historians began to form a more objective view of personalities and events.
The place and date of the origin of the first centrally organized armies is therefore difficult to establish. They seem to have developed at about the same time in both Egypt and Mesopotamia, around 3500 b.c.
The first hints of such organization come to us as battle scenes etched onto stone reliefs. One side of a slate tablet dated to about 3100 b.c. shows Narmer, the pharaoh who united Lower and Upper Egypt, using his mace to club an enemy. The other side shows a walled city falling to his power, while he and his standard bearers review the headless bodies of enemy dead.
The Sumerians, one of the earliest cultures of Mesopotamia, are among the first shown in stone reliefs to have used mass, closely spaced formations of soldiers in war. An inscribed stone pillar known as the “Stele of Vultures,” dating to about 2500 b.c., shows a line of helmeted infantrymen (foot soldiers), with shields and spears, advancing into battle led by their officer. Another stone relief, the “Standard of Ur,” which dates from the same period, shows a similar line of spearmen, this time wearing body armor and accompanied by four-wheeled war carts holding javelin-armed warriors.
Regional armies changed over time, adapting to local circumstances and new technologies, and learning new ways to use old weapons. Even so, most armies almost always contained some combination of the following basic types of troops: infantry, chariots and cavalry, archers and slingers, sappers (troops specially trained to take walled cities), and mercenaries (hired soldiers).
The infantry were usually commoners drafted from the general population. They carried shields and used weapons like the spear, sword, and axe. Some wore metal helmets and body armor. Their role was to fight in rough ground impassable to chariots and cavalry, to besiege and assault cities, and to fight other infantry. They usually fought in a mass formation the Greeks would call a phalanx, a closely-packed block of infantry men six to fifty lines deep.
The chariot and cavalry troops, unlike the infantry, were generally drawn from the ruling elite of a culture. They were a warrior class, close to the king or pharaoh, gaining most of their wealth and land from conquest and royal grant. Their weapons and tactics differed from country to country. Most rode a light two-wheeled chariot, crewed by two to four men, from which they launched arrows or javelins at enemy troops. The power of the chariot warriors in particular was dependent on the flat terrain of the fertile river valleys that were the prizes of ancient warfare.
The archers and slingers provided the longer-ranged firepower for the army. They would sometimes fight from within a formation of infantry, alternating ranks with them, firing arrows or stones over the heads of their comrades at the approaching enemy. More mobile because of their lighter load of equipment, they could also fight from the flanks (sides) or even in front of their own army, helping to break up the enemy front ranks before the two sides engaged.
Sappers were troops who specialized in siege warfare, the taking of walled cities. The city-state was one of the basic units of power in the ancient Near East. To break that power, an enemy had to either destroy the city's army on the field of battle or take the defended city in a siege. Sappers were trained in methods of undermining city walls so that their collapse would provide openings for assault troops. They also built the dirt ramps that allowed siege towers and battering rams to get close enough to the walls to start breaking them down.
Mercenaries were paid, professional soldiers. They were usually foreigners from the barbarian lands surrounding the fertile plains of Egypt and Mesopotamia, including Libya, Nubia, Sardinia, Sicily, Greece, and the mountains and steppes north of the Tigris River. Many wore horned helmets, and they were known for their ferocity in battle. They tended to be more skilled with the weapons used for hand-to-hand combat because of their experience gained in a lifetime of fighting in their own less civilized countries. They not only brought their skills but new weapons. The long bronze slashing sword that appeared in the ancient Near East in about 1200 b.c. is thought to have been introduced by mercenary troops from northern Europe. Capable of both cutting and thrusting, this 30-inch long sword was to make infantry much more versatile and deadly. Because of their skill and the fear they inspired, they frequently had a role in guarding the king in both peace and battle. They were also generally a ruler's most reliable troops, since they had no other local loyalties, and depended on him for their pay and grants of land.
Chariot and Bow
Around 1800 b.c. after the rise of organized armies, a technical revolution took place that would change the face of ancient war. Armies began to use two older weapons, the light war chariot and the composite bow, together. This combined the speed and mobility of the chariot with the rapid, long-range firepower of the bow.
Wheeled vehicles were invented in Sumeria sometime around 4000 b.c. and soon adapted to military use. These first war vehicles were large carts whose main purpose seems to have been to transport spear and javelin carrying warriors to battle. They were pulled by a team of four donkeys and rolled on heavy disk-shaped wheels cut from solid pieces of wood. These would probably have been too clumsy and slow for use as mobile weapons in combat.
The idea of a war vehicle persisted and over the centuries, the weight was pared away along with two of the wheels, and the donkeys were replaced with horses. By about 1500 b.c., the new light war chariot was in action throughout the ancient Near East. Much of its curved shell was made of heat-bent wood (wet wood was flexible when heated and bent and would retain the resulting shape). This type of one-piece construction saved weight and added strength. The new wheels were no longer solid but had four to eight spokes and turned on a fixed axle. The flooring was made of interwoven rawhide strips to cushion the crew from the rough ride. The whole vehicle, without horses, weighed only about 75 pounds and modern replicas easily reach speeds of over 20 miles per hour. The number of crewmen varied but were generally from two to four. The driver and archer were common to most armies, and some added one or two shieldbearers who held up shields to protect the crew from arrows or javelins. Most of the crews wore helmets and armor.
The archer was armed with the composite bow. This bow design first appears in Mesopotamia around 2500 b.c. It was made of several different materials (wood, animal horn, bone, and sinew) attached in layers to each other with a special glue made from fish bladders. It could take years for the assembled bow to cure properly. In the finished bow, the layers created a greater tautness, propelling an arrow with added force. Arrows could now be fired out to about 300 yards and had increased penetrating ability.
Neither the chariot nor bow was cheap. They were time-consuming to make and required special materials and skilled artisans. Only the richer nations could afford to have large fleets of chariots with archers. Solomon is said to have paid about 15 pounds of silver for each of his 1400 chariots and 5 pounds per horse (2 Chr 1.17). Large tracts of farmland would have to be set aside to grow the fodder needed for all the horses, as well as the special reeds needed to make the thousands of arrow shafts.
In combat, the chariot was used as a platform to launch volleys of arrows to smother an enemy, breaking up their formations and panicking their troops. Chariot forces (and later cavalry) did not ram directly into an opposing front line in an attempt to crush or trample them. This tactic would probably just have resulted in the horses stumbling or being killed. Instead, the chariots would gallop around the front and sides of the enemy formations, whittling them down with clouds of arrows. At some point, the enemy would break in panic and the chariots would chase down and kill the fleeing soldiers. Against enemy chariots, the targets of the archers would have been the teams of horses. Once the horses were brought down, the dismounted or injured crews would have been easy targets.
For almost a millenium, the chariot was the most feared weapon of kings and pharaohs. Even after its military usefulness had ended it would remain their favorite ceremonial vehicle. It was such a symbol of power that even the writers of the Bible would describe God as a chariot warrior riding the skies to help the people of Israel (Deut 33.26; Ps 68.17,33; Hab 3.8).
The Israelites
The military history of the people of Israel can be divided into three general periods: the conquest of Canaan (from about 1250 to 1010 b.c.); the Monarchy (1010 to 931 b.c.); and the Divided Kingdom (931 to 586 b.c.). After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c., there would be occasional rebellions, like the one led by the Maccabees in 167 b.c. and the Jewish Revolt in a.d.66, but the land known as Israel would not be independent until modern times.
The Conquest of Canaan
The conquest of the promised land began during a period when the more powerful nations of the region were either distracted or in retreat. Both the Hittites and the Egyptians had been attacked by the “Sea Peoples,” a collection of warrior races originating from the lands north of the Mediterranean. The Hittite empire was largely destroyed and the Egyptians badly weakened. At the same time, the nations of Mesopotamia were busy warring among themselves. This gave the small nations in the eastern Mediterranean area the opportunity to develop among opponents of roughly the same size.
When Israelite scouts who were sent out to Canaan report not only “milk and honey” but walled cities and giants (Num 13.27; Deut 1.25), the Israelites were at first filled with despair. They were a nomadic people armed only with the basic hand weapons of their day: the spear, javelin, bow, sling, and sickle sword. Against them are enemies whose city walls “reach to the sky” and whose iron chariots (Josh 17.16) control the plains.
These early Israelites, under leaders like Joshua, Deborah and Barak, and Gideon, developed tactics to meet these challenges. Almost every battle they fought in this period shares common characteristics: first, a careful reconnaissance to find out the enemy's strength and position; followed by an attack using surprise, clever tactics, and the advantages of terrain. These are the military means used by the weak to defeat the strong. At Jericho and Ai, Joshua develops his plans based on careful scouting (Josh 2.1; 7.2), as does Gideon against the Midianites (Judg 7.12). Joshua mounts surprise attacks at Gibeon and Merom Pond to rout the Canaanite charioteers (Josh 10.9; 11.7). Joshua lures the defenders out of Ai with a faked retreat and then ambushes them (Josh 8.1-28); Gideon uses trumpets and torches in a surprise attack to panic the Midianites (Judg 7). Deborah and Barak use the wet terrain near the Kishon River to bog down and destroy the enemy chariots (Judg 4.14,15; 5.21).
The result would be the capture of the central highlands of Palestine, the lands between the Mediterranean and the eastern desert, with the Dead Sea and Jordan River at their center. This terrain favors the defense: a maze of twisting valleys overlooked by tall hills perfect for fortress cities. Once taken by the unconventional tactics of the Israelites, those hills would serve as a secure homeland (see the maps on [Division of Canaan] and 0000 [United Israelite Kingdom] ).
The Israelites considered this a “holy war” sanctioned by the Lord. This is shown by the application of “the ban” at Jericho (Josh 6.16-26). The term refers to the total destruction of a target city, its idols, and every living thing in it in dedication to the Lord (Deut 3.3-6; 7.2; 20.16-18). In the book of Joel, such devastation is compared to an attack by an army of locusts (Joel 2.2-10). The idea of the total annihilation of another culture was common in the ancient Near East; the Assyrians were particularly feared for their terror tactics. (See also the mini-article called “Holy War (The Lord's Battles),” on .)
The Monarchy
Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, began the process of unifying the twelve tribes of Israel into a state, as the people claimed they wanted when they begged for a king who would lead them in battle (1 Sam 8.19-20). As the first Israelite king (from about 1030 to 1010 b.c.), his basic strategy was to protect the central highlands from Philistine attack. The Philistines were probably one of the “Sea Peoples” whose attempts to invade Egypt a century before had failed. Instead, they had settled on the coast of Palestine and begun to push inland. Saul formed his nation's first regular army, a full-time force of 3000 men (1 Sam 13.2). These were all infantry and were probably equipped with the same basic weapons as Joshua's men. After many victories against the Philistines (1 Sam 14.47-48), Saul was finally defeated by chariots and cavalry at Mount Gilboa and killed (1 Sam 31.3; 2 Sam 1.6).
David was the first leader to recognize, and have the means to control, the features that made the country a military asset: the two major north-south roads that made trade and invasion possible, the Coastal Highway along the eastern Mediterranean shoreline, and the King's Highway east of the Dead Sea and Jordan River (see the map on [Palestine in the Time of the Maccabees] ).
With a mix of open warfare and sly tactics, David completed the conquest of Canaan (2 Sam 8.1-4; 1 Chr 18.1-3). He destroyed a Philistine army by attacking from behind in a wood, the trees no doubt offsetting the enemy's advantage in chariots that had proven fatal to Saul (2 Sam 5.17-25; 1 Chr 14.14). He took Jerusalem by stealth, attacking up an unguarded water tunnel (2 Sam 5.7-9). As king (from about 1010 to 970 b.c.), he formed a large, permanent army to defend his conquests. It was divided into two parts, a regular army and a tribal militia. The regulars consisted of a core group built around the “Thirty Warriors” who had followed David from the beginning (2 Sam 23.18; 1 Chr 11.20), and a group of Philistine mercenaries like Ittai of Gath (2 Sam 18.2). The tribal militia consisted of 24,000 different men per month who would be drafted out of the tribes (1 Chr 27.1-15) giving David a large base from which to reinforce his regular army.
By the height of his rule, David had extended the borders of his kingdom from the sea to the Eastern Desert, and from Phoenicia in the north to the Egyptian border in the south. Former threats like Philistia, Aram-Zobar, Ammon, and Damascus were now paying tribute money to him.
David's son, Solomon, who ruled from about 970 to 931 b.c., fought no wars but secured the gains won by his father. He added archer-bearing chariots to the army (1 Kgs 10.36; 2 Chr 9.25) and built a series of fortress cities (1 Kgs 9.19; 2 Chr 8.6).
Divided Kingdom
Solomon's use of taxation and forced labor for his building programs made the northern tribes of Israel angry enough to break away (1 Kgs 12.1-19). Just as the unified kingdom was splitting up into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, regional powers were on the rise again: Egypt, the kingdoms of Syria, and Assyria. With the division of the kingdoms, a unified defense was impossible. Judah and Israel fought each other as much as with outsiders (1 Kgs 15.32; 2 Chr 12.15; 13.13), even joining forces with traditional enemies against each other (1 Kgs 15.19,20; 2 Kgs 16.7).
The fortunes of Israel and Judah rose and fell during the long struggle to escape foreign domination. From their weaker positions as smaller powers, they shifted alliances, playing one enemy off against another, sometimes fighting and sometimes paying tribute. The two kingdoms created two separate strategies of defense.
Rehoboam, King of Judah from 931 to 913 b.c., built a series of fortress towns (2 Chr 11.5-12) to defend the central highlands after a humiliating invasion by Sheshak of Egypt (1 Kgs 15.25; 2 Chr 12.9). This system of defense would serve as the general strategy of Judah until 586 b.c., based on the expectation that while an enemy was busy besieging one fort, reinforcements would be attacking from the others. However, Jerusalem barely escaped capture in 701 b.c. by the forces of Assyria led by Sennacherib, which were strong enough to take, at the same time, all the cities in Judah except the capital. As a further defense measure, Judah would give up control of the Coastal Highway and the King's Highway, or pay tribute, if challenged by a superior power like Assyria, thus removing the reason for the enemy to attack their highland stronghold.
The northern kingdom's general strategy was to defend itself as far away from its city walls as possible. Because of this, chariots were a more important weapon for Israel than they were for Judah, which tended to rely on infantrymen for its rougher terrain. While still fortifying its cities, Israel would try to create alliances, even with its constant Syrian enemies, to oppose greater threats like Assyria. King Ahab, for instance, joined the coalition against Shalmaneser III, supplying 2,000 chariots and 10,000 infantry for the battle of Qarqar in 853 b.c., which temporarily halted the southward advance of the Assyrians.
The strategies of both Israel and Judah would eventually fail. Samaria, the capital of Israel, was captured by the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser V, in 722 b.c. after a three year siege and its people killed or deported (2 Kgs 17.5). Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, in about 586 b.c. The next opportunity for independence for the Israelites would be in 167 b.c.
Revolt
After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 b.c., the lands he had conquered were ruled by his generals and the family dynasties descended from them. In 168 b.c., the Jews of Palestine revolted against the Seleucids, the dynasty that controlled Palestine. (See the article called “After the Exile,” , and the notes at the beginning of the book of Daniel,.) The Jews were eventually led by Judas, one of the sons of Mattathias, the priest who started the revolt (1 Macc 2.27). They fought a guerilla campaign from the hills against the Seleucid occupiers.
The strategy of the Seleucids was to use their overwhelming strength to simply crush the rebels. Their army consisted of armor-wearing infantry equipped with shields and long thrusting spears. They also used cavalry. They even included a force of 32 Indian war elephants, each of which carried an enclosed platform filled with archers, escorted by a special force of armored cavalry (1 Macc 3.34; 6.30,34-37). They were forbidden to use these elephants by the terms of a peace treaty they had signed with Rome, a rising power in the region. The elephants seem to have been the only military force that actually panicked the Jewish troops (1 Macc 6.47).
In the Judean hills, the poorly armed rebels destroyed one overconfident Seleucid force after another, as though re-enacting the stories of Joshua and Gideon they knew from childhood (1 Macc 4.8,13). They were able to arm themselves with weapons taken from the enemy dead (1 Macc 3.12; 4.23). Judas' new military skills would earn him the nickname “the Maccabee,” or “the Hammer.” An unexpected aid in the revolt is the political chaos of the Seleucid regime. At times, campaigns are called off because of infighting among the ruling elite (1 Macc 6.55-56).
Even before Judas' death in battle in 161 b.c. (1 Macc 9.18), political weapons were as important as military ones, since neither side seemed able to win the war. Each side used negotiation as a way of weakening the other. The Seleucid general Lysias promised a return of religious freedom (1 Macc 6.59) as a means of dividing the Jews; the Maccabees signed treaties with other powers, especially Rome. In 142 b.c., after years of fighting and intrigue, Simon, the last son of Mattathias, finally won recognition of the independence of Israel.
Assyria
Assyrian military power dominated the ancient Near East from about 900 to 612 b.c. The Assyrian army at its height probably numbered over 100,000 men. It was a mixed force employing every aspect of ancient warfare: infantry armed with spears and swords, archers, slingers, sappers, and four-man chariots (a driver, two shieldbearers, and the archer; see the illustration on [, Assyrian War Chariot]). The Assyrians had been the first to move to iron for all their weapons, as early as 1100 b.c., and were the first to introduce real cavalry. By the ninth century b.c., stone reliefs of horse-mounted archers begin to appear in Assyria. Cavalry could go into terrain too rough for chariots and was cheaper to operate, since all the cavalrymen fought, whereas with chariots, only the archer in the four-man crew fought.
Battle formation consisted of a central mass of infantry, with chariots and cavalry on the flanks, ready to fan out on either side to attack an enemy's flank of rear. The Assyrians were capable of moving their huge armies great distances while keeping them well-supplied, the test of a successful military machine. Sargon II (721 to 705 b.c.) and his army conducted a campaign north into the mountainous country of Armenia, crossing rivers, building roads through wild areas, fighting battles, and taking walled cities as they went. Esarhaddon (680 to 669 b.c.) pushed far enough west to conquer Egypt.
The Assyrians also developed siege warfare to an art. They knew that the key to power in the ancient Near East was the taking of enemy cities. Cities contained the distinctive human wealth—material, cultural, technical, and spiritual—of a people. A city could survive the defeat of its army outside its walls, but if the walls were destroyed and the city itself fell, the entire culture was at the mercy of the enemy and would be lost or absorbed piecemeal into the culture of the invaders. The Assyrians made all the specialized troops and equipment necessary for a siege a permanent part of their army.
Sennacherib (703 to 681 b.c.) captured the city of Lachish in Judah after a siege in 701 b.c. (2 Kgs 18.13,14). Stone reliefs of the siege depict many of the details of this type of warfare. First, the fire of archers drives the defenders from the walls as an inclined earthen ramp is built up to the walls over any moat or rough ground. Tall, wheeled siege towers, covered with wet rawhide as fireproofing, are then moved up the ramp. Battering rams suspended inside begin to pound the wall to pieces, while archers on top of the towers continue to fire at anyone on the walls who might interfere. At the same time, sappers (special siege troops) protected by thick wicker shields undermine the walls to make them collapse. Finally, assault troops pour through the gaps in the walls and take the city.
The Assyrians were not forgiving victors. The same stone reliefs show many of their victims impaled atop giant stakes. It was their policy to punish resistance or rebellion with pure military terror. When Babylon rebelled in 689 b.c., Sennacherib literally wiped it out, even digging a canal that would flood it so that no sign of the city remained. As a follow-up to their terror policy, they deported whole populations, especially leaders and skilled workers, to serve them in other parts of their empire. By scattering peoples, the Assyrians made it difficult for any one people to stage a unified rebellion.
As its power decayed, Assyria finally fell to its former victim, Babylon, in 612 b.c. Because of its cruel policies, there was, as the prophet Nahum said, no one willing to mourn (Nah 3.7).
Babylonia
The Babylonian Empire lasted only from about 626 to 539 b.c., spanning the century that separated the collapse of Assyria and the rise of Persia. Its greatest king was Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled from 605 to 562 b.c. Even as he rebuilt Babylon after its destruction by Sennacherib, he was destroying cities like Tyre and Jerusalem. Babylon inherited much of its military technology and behavior from the hated Assyrians.
With the fall of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, in 612 b.c., the regional powers raced each other for the fragments of the Assyrian empire. Neco II, pharoah of Egypt, had allied himself with the survivors of the dynasty in an attempt to stop the now powerful Babylonians. After a defeat in Syria at Carchemish in 605 b.c., Neco retreated to Egypt, leaving Palestine open for conquest by Nebuchadnezzar. The kingdom of Judah chose to become a vassal state, paying tribute to the Babylonian king. In 601 b.c., however, an attempt by Nebuchadnezzar to invade Egypt was driven back. Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, sensing an Egyptian advantage, withheld his tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, inciting a new invasion in 597 b.c. The new king, Jehoiachin, quickly surrendered Jerusalem hoping to be treated mercifully, but a wave of deportations followed (2 Kgs 24.1-17).
A few years later, Zedekiah, the new king installed in Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, also rebelled. This act of disloyalty by a sworn vassal (2 Chr 36.13) meant no chance of mercy. The Babylonians invaded Judah again and besieged Jerusalem. In about 586 b.c., after nearly two years of siege, the starving city was captured, burned, and all but the poorest people deported (2 Kgs 25.1-12). Judah was left like an empty desert (2 Chr 36.31).
Egypt
Most scholars agree that throughout the long history of Egypt its military strategy was defensive, with the purpose of protecting the rich Nile River delta. The geography of the region helped them in their strategy: there were deserts to the west and east, and the wilder stretches of the Upper Nile blocked most movement from Nubia in the south.
By 2600 b.c., the Egyptians had a standing army, a system of border forts, and the ability to conduct sieges. Around 1660 b.c., their defensive strategy failed, and they were conquered by the Hyksos, a migratory warrior race from the east. The main military results of the occupation were to introduce the light war chariot, and to convince the Egyptians, once they had overthrown the Hyksos around 1550 b.c., to change to a more aggressive type of war strategy. Instead of waiting for invasions to occur, the pharaohs began to campaign regularly into Syria and Palestine, the likely avenues of attack.
The Egyptian armies of this period were mostly light infantry, carrying bronze sickle swords (a short cutting sword about 20 inches long), axes, bronze rods (used as clubs), spears, and large shields. Their main striking weapon was the light war chariot, bearing an archer.
About 1469 b.c., Thutmoses III fought the battle of Megiddo against a coalition of rebellious Canaanite princes. According to the Egyptian account, the pharaoh's chariots formed into three large formations in a front that might have been two miles wide, and charged the Canaanite chariots waiting outside the city of Megiddo. On seeing the arrow-firing mass coming at them, the Canaanites seem to have panicked and retreated in such disorder that they abandoned almost 1,000 of their chariots at the base of the city walls. They themselves were hauled up over the walls by ropes improvised from their own clothing. Thutmoses took the city after a siege and is thought to have conducted about fifteen other campaigns back into the region.
In 1285 b.c., Rameses II (thought to be the pharaoh when the people of Israel left Egypt) fought a major battle at Kadesh in Syria. He had an army of 20,000 men with him and defeated a Hittite force of 2,500 chariots.
After Rameses III barely managed to defeat the “Sea Peoples” in 1179 b.c., Egyptian power began to recede, to be replaced by more powerful empires like the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians. (For more about the Persians, see the mini-article called “Persia,” on .)
Rome and the Jewish Revolt
Roman troops first came as occupiers to Palestine in 65 b.c. By the first century a.d., Rome had few serious enemies left and most of its 28 legions were spread out around the empire as garrison troops to keep order locally, especially along troubled frontiers like those bordering Germany in the north and Parthia in the east.
The Roman army of the early empire was a powerful and flexible force. Its heart was the legion of about 5,500 legionaries, divided into ten smaller units called cohorts. The legionaries wore bronze helmets and mail armor (made of iron rings woven tightly into a shirt-length garment). Each carried an iron short-sword, two iron-tipped javelins, and a wooden shield reinforced with armor at the center and edges. Each legion was generally supported by locally recruited auxiliary troops, who served as cavalry, archers, or slingers. In battle, the men of the cohorts were arranged in a checkerboard pattern, a looser arrangement than the old Greek phalanx. Where the phalanx could only really attack to the front, the Roman formation could maneuver easily from side to side, feed men up from the rear ranks to replace exhausted men at the front, and even turn around and fight in the opposite direction. In combat, the legionaries would hurl their two javelins at the enemy while charging in formation to sword range.
Judea was the name the Romans gave to Palestine. It formed an important part of their border defense line against the powerful Parthian Empire to the east. The Romans took any internal threat to their control over Judea very seriously, so when a Jewish revolt broke out in a.d. 66, they reacted by sending four of their legions to suppress the revolt.
The legions, numbering about 20,000 men and at least as many regional auxiliaries, quickly brought the centers of Jewish resistance under siege. Josephus, the Jewish commander of the city of Jotapota and later prisoner of the Romans, left an account of the revolt. He tells of the raids his forces made on the Roman lines outside Jotapota to try to destroy siege equipment before it could be used on the walls. He describes the attempts to destroy battering rams from the city walls, and pouring boiling oil on the Roman troops. He tells how he saw a Roman catapult throwing 50-pound stones that knocked pieces from the city walls, and one shot that even decapitated a man standing next to him. These devices, which looked like giant crossbows, had been invented in 399 b.c. by the Greeks of the city of Syracuse in Sicily. They were powered by twisted springs of sinew or hair and could launch stones or arrows. They were standard equipment in every legion and about 340 of them were used to put down the revolt.
Later, as a captive, Josephus described the siege of Jerusalem in a.d. 69. The city was divided into five major sections: the New town, the Antonia fortress, the Temple, the Middle town, and the Old town. The Jews inside the city, torn by political and religious infighting, only occasionally mount an effective defense. The Romans, in a five-month siege, use their iron-headed battering rams to break through the walls of one section after another, burning and destroying as they go. When they were done, Jerusalem had been leveled once again by a conqueror.
It was in the wake of this destruction, which included the destruction of the Jewish temple, that rabbinic Judaism and Christianity began to take their familiar forms.