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I_Would_Say

WFG Retired
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Posts posted by I_Would_Say

  1. Miltiades

    By

    Nathan Benjamin aka I_Would_Say

    Miltiades was born sometime in the 550’s BC, when a tyrant Pisistratus ruled Athens and later Pisistratus’s son, Hippias. The actual date of Miltiades’s birth is unknown. Miltiades is credited for his victory at the Battle of Marathon against the Persians, lead by Darius I, in 490 BC.

    Miltiades was the ruler of Chersonese, a peninsula north of Troy. Herodotus tells us that Miltiades’s uncle, Miltiades the Elder, was offered Chersonese by the Chersonesians in the 430’s BC and the oracle of Delphi advised him to take it. Miltiades the Elder and some Athenian settlers took over the peninsula. Miltiades the Elder was succeeded by his nephew, Stesagoras. Stesagoras died without children, making Miltiades, Stesagoras’s brother, inherit Chersonese in 520 BC. When Miltiades inherited Chersonese, he was mourning of his brother. When the leaders of Chersonese came to weep for Stesagoras, Miltiades arrested them. To strengthen his position, Miltiades married Hegesyple, the daughter of Olorus, the King of Thrace. Their son, Cimon, became an important person during the 470’s and 460’s BC.

    In 514 or 513 BC, Miltiades accompanied King Darius I, the same person he later fought against in the Battle of Marathon, to fight the Scythians, though we do not know why he did so. In 507 BC, Hippias, the son of the tyrant Pisistratus, was overthrown from Athens and Miltiades’s family was then registered as living in Athens. Miltiades, along with the other Ionian Greeks, revolted against King Darius I in 499 BC. In 494 or 493 BC, Persian ships approached and Miltiades fled from Chersonese back to Athens. After the revolt, the Persians realized that they had to destroy the Greeks in order to keep their lands safe. They conquered Macedonia, Naxos (the largest island in the Aegean Sea), Delos, and Eretria. Then the Persians went to Marathon, which was the land on the other side of Eretria.

    In 490 BC, Miltiades was elected as one of the ten generals, or strategoi, against the Persians. Miltiades commanded the Greek army against the Persians. He had about 10,000 men from Athens and 100 from Platai. Miltiades charged his infantry against the Persian cavalry about two kilometers away. Herodotus says the Persians considered this “suicidal madness”. But the Athenians won this charge. According to Herodotus, the Athenians lost 192 men in the charge and the Persians lost 6400, but this is most likely exaggerated.

    The Persians retreated to the sea and attempted to attack Athens by sea. Miltiades took his infantry back to Athens just in time to defend against the Persians. Miltiades had a fleet of 70 ships and he used them to retake the Aegean Sea. He then attacked the Persian island of Paros, but he failed in conquering it and broke his leg. Miltiades went back to Athens. He was charged with treason and was impeached. Miltiades was originally sentenced to death, then that changed to a huge fine. Miltiades could not possibly pay it, so he was sent to prison where he died in 489 BC from the leg wound he received.

    During 1884 and 1885, Hauptmann Eschenburg, a German officer, visited Marathon and found a huge pile of bones belonging to hundreds of people, indicating a burial. The hundreds of bones buried were Persians. The Athenians received tombs in the middle of the plain, and the Plataeans, allies of the Athenians, were buried near the small village of Vrana.

    Bibliography

    Largent, Kimberly J. Leaders and Battles: Miltiades. Leaders and Battles. 30 Dec. 2004 < http://www.lbdb.com/TMDisplayLeader.cfm?PID=5634 >.

    Lendering, Jona. Miltiades. 16 Jan. 2005 < http://www.livius.org/mi-mn/miltiades/miltiades.html >.

    Miltiades, Greece, ancient history. 31 Dec. 2004 < http://www.in2greece.com/english/historymy...t/miltiades.htm >.

    Miltiades. Wikipedia. 30 Dec. 2004 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miltiades >.

  2. The Numantine War

    By

    Nathan Benjamin aka I_Would_Say

    The Numantine war lasted from 143 BC to 133 BC. The war was of the Romans attacking Numantia, the main city of the Celtiberians. Numantia resisted. The Romans were attacking it for twenty years, and still had not succeeded. The Romans lost morale, and were looking for divine signs they would win the war. Many people do not know of this war. This suggests the Romans won easily. Yet it took 60,000 men and Rome’s best general, Scipio Aemilianus, conqueror of Carthage, to defeat 8,000 men of Numantia, not to mention the many poorer generals sent by Rome, who failed.

    In 143 BC, the Senate sent Caecilius Metellus to conquer Numantia. Metellus was successful in conquering some of the Numantines, but he failed to conquer Numantia. Metellus’s successor was Pompeius. Pompeius attacked the Termantians in 141 BC. He had fought a major battle, though he was quite incompetent. Pompeius had 30,000 men and he could not take a city with only 8000 men, even though part of the enemy wall was demolished. Pompeius retreated to attack Numantia instead. Knowing his siege was failing, Pompeius sold the Numantines peace for 30 tons of silver. After making this peace, he refused to admit it to the Senate. When the Senate found out, they replaced Pompeius with Popillius Laenas. Popillius rejected the peace Pompeius made. When he refused to return the silver to the Numantines in 139 BC, the Senate replaced him with C. Hostilius Mancinus. Mancinus declared war on the Celtiberians in 137 BC. Unfortunately for him, he managed to get his 20,000 troops surrounded by Celtiberians in a valley. After hearing a rumor that many Numantine reinforcements had come, Mancinus surrendered and had a treaty saying Numantines and Romans were put as equals. This treaty was negotiated by Mancinus’s father, Tiberius Gracchus. When the Senate found out, they forced Mancinus to go back to Hither Iberia alone and he was turned over to the Numantines naked for breaking the treaty Popillius made.

    The Senate decided they needed a greater general to conquer Numantia. They called upon Scipio Aemilianus (also called Africanus Minor) who burned Carthage to the ground in 146 BC. Scipio attacked the Vaccaei, looking for loot, despite the Senate’s warnings not to. Scipio ignored the Senate and continued attacking. He then attacked the city of Pallantia. Scipio ran out of supplies and was forced to retreat. The Senate fined Scipio for attacking the Vaccaei. In 134 BC, Scipio commanded the Roman army and brought discipline and morale to the soldiers who had none. In 133 BC, Scipio began his siege on Numantia. He ordered his soldiers to plunder the nearby fields of Numantia. The troops took what they needed immediately and burned the rest. Scipio then had his men build seven forts around a hill with a wall and a ditch to connect them. Scipio also blocked the Duero River, the river which the Numantines got their supplies from. One of the leading Numantine soldiers, Rhetogenes, called for help. Rhetogenes called for the Arevaci, a nearby tribe, for help. The Arevaci were afraid of the Romans, so they refused to help. Rhetogenes then turned to Lutia, another tribe. The younger men of Lutia were very willing to help. However some of the older men doubted they would be successful, so they informed Scipio about this. Scipio stopped his attack on Numantia and went to Lutia, cutting of the hands of the 400 people who were willing to help. Scipio then continued the siege on Numantia.

    Scipio had blocked the Duero River, cutting of Numantia’s food supply. The town soon resorted to cannibalism. Numantia finally surrendered in 133 BC. Scipio burned it and razed it to the ground. Numantia was destroyed and forgotten.

  3. I think the auto advancing sounds quite cool but it means you can't save up loads of resources and advance late or try and get a really fast advance, maybe you'll be able to turn it off...

    Actually.. you're right - I never thought of that! :D Auto-advance will get rid of the OP Isis FH, the l4m3 Fast Titan+Wonder, etc! It sounds pretty cool now! B)

  4. I think they should have more civs (they have to have the Portugese - they were not that much less involved with colonization than the Spanish). 8 civs seems too little - I think they should have something more of AOK - 17 civs.

    But ES's games get more and more "noobish". I mean, with TT, you get autoque and Atlanteans, no drop of points, etc. But then, I guess the game will be pretty balanced if everyone is like Atties. When everyone is OP, the game is balanced.

    And 3 resources is too little - get stone back! Come on! Or some other resource like... ore.. or something.

    And I don't like the auto-advancing...

    But other than that, the game looks great!

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