Their idea of fighting was as different as possible from that of the Persians. They had few horse-soldiers. They were drawn up for battle in a close deep formation, I suppose like what we should call "a solid square," and it was this solid square that was called the phalanx. The troops were heavily armed, with shield, sword, and, most important of all for receiving the charge of cavalry, with long spears. You can imagine what a solid defence this would make against the lightly armed cavalry of the Persians. The arrows would not cause very serious loss to the armoured and shielded Greeks, and when the Persians did finally push their charge home the spears would so receive them that it would be like charging a gigantic porcupine.
GREEK WARRIOR.
Of course all that would depend on the phalanx keeping its solid formation. If its ranks got at all broken up in pursuit, under the mistaken idea that the Persians, after the first onslaught, were done with, and were fleeing away, then it would be a very much less formidable porcupine on which the horsemen would come when they returned to the attack. Probably the Greeks quickly learnt the Persians' methods and grew careful to keep their formation without any big breaks in it.
The phalanx
These heavily armed soldiers of the Greeks were called hoplites. After a while the phalanx was assisted by lighter armed and more swiftly moving troops called peltasts, but the solid phalanx was always the great strength of their armies. The peltasts were never regarded as of equal importance with the hoplites, though they were very valuable assistants to the phalanx. The Greeks, living in a comparatively small country with the sea on either side of them, had not the same chance of getting horses for a numerous cavalry as the nations that had all Asia or all the north-eastern parts of Europe to draw on for their supply.
This phalanx of the Greeks is a very important feature in the great story. It was chiefly, as we may suppose, by reason of their adopting this formation and making such splendid use of it, that they were sought after, as we know that they were, by other nations to come to the assistance of their own armies. There grew up in Greece a class of what we may call professional soldiers, ready to hire themselves out for pay, to fight on any side that would make it worth their while to do so. We find them thus, as what we call "mercenaries," fighting sometimes for the Egyptians, sometimes against them. Some of them we even find fighting for the Persians. And they scarcely ceased fighting among themselves. The Persian empire extended to Egypt, and to all the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, but it was not powerful enough to prevent much fighting between the peoples subject to it. It could not, however, prevail much against Greece, in spite of the divisions between the Greek states.
Our story now, say after 500 B.C., or thereabouts, is concerned very much with the vain attempts of the Persians to subjugate the Greeks—to get them under their yoke. And again I must remind you, to get the picture at all clear and full, that the Mediterranean was continually being ravaged by the ships of pirates and traders—ready to be peaceful merchants if it paid them better to be so, or to attack other shipping or coast towns if they could do so with success.
The Peoples of the Sea was the old name for these raiders and traders, who were of all nations, sometimes combining together, and making themselves into quite a powerful navy, with headquarters in Crete or another of the many islands. The most powerful, as a nation, of any of these sea-raiders were the Phœnicians. They planted many settlements along the coasts, either on islands or on easily defended projecting headlands of the main shores. Such places were of value to them for their ships to run into when beset by storms or by enemies. The most important in our story was their settlement at Carthage. This Carthage will play a very big part later on.