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Croesus' Wealth Lost By A Helmet In 547 BC, Cyrus, the Great King of Persia was at war with Croesus, the fabulously rich king of Lydia. Cyrus's cavalry forces had beaten the Lydians in the field, but Croesus retreated and rallied his troops in a strong defense of Sardis within its stout walls, but at the same time had bottled himself and most of his army up in the capital.Cyrus sat down to besiege it, but its walls were very high and strong,...

Generally army rations consisted of little else than wheat. The soldiers themselves would ground the grain they were given and made it into things such as porridge or bread.Whenever possible this monotonous army diet was supplemented with whatever was locally available like pork, fish, chicken, cheese, fruit and vegetables. But the basic ration of frumentum was never far from the soldiers stomach and formed the basis of their diet. So much so, th...

All legionary soldiers also received a sizeable sum of money on the completion of their term of service: 3000 denarii from the time of Augustus and/or a plot of good farmland (good land was in much demand). Later, under Caracalla, the praemia increased to 5000 denarii.So this is the army that conquered the world- a large force of disciplined men in tight ranks acting as one. Almost nothing of the day could withstand this unrelenting fighting mach...