The Greek and Macedonian Art of War: Volume 30

F. E. Adcock's main theme in these lecture is to elucidate in an easy to read book how Greeks and Macedonians applied their minds to the art of war. It covers battle tactics and military strategy from the age of city-states' phalanxes of spearmen to the more complicated combined operations of highly efficient land and sea forces in the Hellenistic Age. He explains how the art of war gradually evolved into new formations used by such imminent commanders as Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon and Alexander The Great. He describes the first use of cavalry, and recounts the ingenious use of siege craft used by the Greeks to great effect. This is a good introductory work on the ancient art of warfare. Being that I am a retired U. S. Army Major, I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in ancient warfare, and history.

This book is a little gem. It is the transcription of a series of lessons, each of which covers an aspect of Greek Warfare from the Heroic Age to the Ellenistic Kingdoms. Although short, the book is exhaustive and definitely worth buying for both the military enthusiast and the general reader. The only criticism I might make is that there are no illustrations; this makes it difficult to visualize the chapter on naval warfare. For this reson, the book should be read together with the "Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ancient Warfare" by Warry.

Adcock gives an all-too-brief overview of Hellenic and Hellenistic military art. He begins with the city-state at war and then devotes chapters to infantry and naval matters. Next he turns to the more Hellenistic topics of cavalry, elephants, and siegecraft. He then gives us a chapter on strategy, and concludes with a chapter on generalship. The book was an interesting read, and I got to the last page far too soon.