The Iron Age
The Iron Age began after the Bronze age, and brought about more brutal warfare with the increased durability of the iron. It also made the armor and shields used in warfare even more powerful.
Greeks
![Picture](/uploads/1/7/7/6/17762567/714051139.jpg?299)
A Greek phalanx formation.
Iron was introduced to the Greeks on the Balkan Peninsula after the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. It is said that the Mycenaean civilization fell to invaders called the Dorians, but some researchers are starting to think that maybe the Dorians were the common people of Greece that revolted and overthrew their Mycenaean overlords. Either way this brought the iron to Greece, which helped it improve its infantry's armor as well as weapons. The Greeks army consisted of mostly infantry - called hoplites - covered from head to toe in armor, with a large, heavy shield, long spear called a dory and either a stabbing sword called a xiphos or a hacking sword called a kopis.
Romans
![Picture](/uploads/1/7/7/6/17762567/439487547.jpg?373)
Roman soldier's weapons and armor.
The Romans were originally a little city state on the Italian Peninsula called Latium (hence the language Latin). They were ruled by the tyrannical Etruscans up until 509 BC when they revolted. At the time the Roman military was the most powerful in the world; no one could break their legions because of their tight formations and strong discipline. All Roman soldiers were equipped with a cuirass, shield, two javelins (called pilums), a short stabbing sword called a gladius and a helmet with a crest on it. One of the greatest advancements of Roman military technology was their creation of the pilum. It was fashioned out of a wooden stock with a replaceable spearhead on top. Ingeniously, the spearhead, because of the weight of the wooden haft creating torsion on the metal shaft of the weapon, the metal shaft would bend rendering a shield useless while leaving your body maimed. It also came equipped with a bodkin tip so that it would penetrate any armor or shield in order to do damage to the soldier. These military techniques and technologies changed the entirety of warfare. It was no longer just about who had the better weapons, but who had the better tactics.
![Picture](/uploads/1/7/7/6/17762567/942294913.jpg?625)
A Roman legion in the midst of a barbarian attack. Similar to the Greeks phalanx formation, the Romans used something called the tortoise formation, which is a tight formation where the sides of the legion fight the enemies while the inside of the legion lifts their shields over everyone's head in order to give them more protection against missiles.