Battles of the ancient world

The largest battle of the Second Punic War, this battle represented one of the worst defeats in Roman history. The Carthaginians were led by Hannibal, while the Romans were led by the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro.

the first battle of the second Persian invasion of Greece. Although the Persians under Xerxes I and his general Mardonius defeated the Spartans, King Leonidas and his Spartan troops put up a heroic defense of the pass.

This naval battle (480 BC) was a major turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars, as it signaled the beginning of the end of Persian attempts to conquer Greece. The battle is named after an island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens.

Following the battle, the Spartans besieged Athens and forced its surrender.

the fleet of Octavian defeated the combined forces of Cleopatra and Mark Antony at this battle near modern-day Preveza in the Ambracian Gulf of Greece.

The Persian admiral Ariabignes was killed in hand-to-hand combat, and the Queen of Halicarnassus, Artemisia, had to sink some of her allies' ships to escape.

part of the civil war that ensued when Maxentius usurped the throne of the western half of the Roman Empire from Constantine.

Taking place near modern Edirne, Turkey, this battle signalled the beginning of the spread of Germanic peoples into the Western Roman Empire. The Romans were led by the eastern emperor Valens, while the Goths were led by Fritigern.

An epic battle between the Romans and the Huns fought in what is now France. The Roman army was commanded by Flavius Aetius and included Visigoths under Theodoric I, who was killed by an Ostrogoth during the battle.

Although Ramses proclaimed a great victory for himself, he was lucky to achieve a stalemate after being ambushed by Hittite chariots.

Hannibal employed a double-envelopment tactic, surrounded the Roman army, and destroyed it.

Probably the largest chariot battle in history, with over 5,000 chariots engaged. The Egyptian chariots were smaller and faster than those used by the Hittites, which gave the Egyptians an advantage

Among the few Athenian dead of the battle were archon Callimachus and the general Stesilaos.

The final battle of the Second Punic War, it was fought near Carthage in modern-day Tunisia. Scipio Africanus's victory at the Battle of the Great Plains in 203 BC forced Hannibal to leave Italy and return to North Africa for the final showdown.

One of the earliest battles in recorded history, this battle (1274 BC) was fought near the Orontes River in modern-day Syria between Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king Muwatalli II.