The study of the military history of the ancient world is a curious pursuit. It is
not exactly a growth industry, and even less so in a society which seems to
devalue history more than the older societies of Europe. It remains one of the
more curious aspects of American intellectual life that there are only a handful
of institutions of higher learning where a student may pursue a Ph.D. in the
field of military history. Viewed in this light, the study of ancient military history
is less attainable than specific areas of concentration in even the more arcane
areas of physics and genetics. With the exception of its highest graduate schools,
even within the military itself the study of ancient military history is hardly
stressed. It is a common view that the march of military technology has rendered
the study of the lessons taught by the ancients on long-forgotten battlefields
mostly irrelevant.

This book is a direct challenge to this state of affairs, and rests upon the
conviction that ancient military history has much to teach not only the profes-
sional soldier, but the public policy maker and average citizen as well. For it is
with the citizenry of a democracy that the ultimate decision to support or reject
a war rests. For soldiers, policy makers, and citizens to remain ignorant of what
has gone before in the history of arms is almost to guarantee that the egregious
errors of the past will be repeated, albeit in a different but analogous form, by
the soldiers and politicians of the present.

Perhaps a single example will serve to demonstrate what is at issue here. For
most of the American population the Gulf War of 1991 appeared a unique
undertaking wherein the forces of high technology and moral righteousness con-
fronted the personification of evil in the person of an "insane" dictator who

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