City walls: Did you mean...?

This map illustrates the city-states of Classical Greece around 500 BCE, highlighting the rise of the polis system and the growing reach of Hellenic influence along the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts. The period saw Athens and Sparta...

A polis (plural: poleis) was the typical structure of a community in the ancient Greek world. A polis consisted of an urban centre, often fortified and with a sacred centre built on a natural acropolis or harbour, which controlled a surrounding...

Carsulae in Umbria, central Italy, was founded c. 300 BCE and only became a prosperous urban centre after it was connected by the Via Flaminia towards the end of the 3rd century BCE. It was granted the status of municipium and acquired a...

Siege tactics were a crucial part of medieval warfare, especially from the 11th century CE when castles became more widespread in Europe and sieges outnumbered pitched battles. Castles and fortified cities offered protection to both the local...

Carthage was a Phoenician city-state on the coast of North Africa (the site of modern-day Tunis) which, prior the conflict with Rome known as the Punic Wars (264-146 BCE), was the largest, most affluent, and powerful political entity in the...

Athens, Greece, with its famous Acropolis, has come to symbolize the whole of the country in the popular imagination, and not without cause. It not only has its iconic ruins and the famous port of Piraeus but, thanks to ancient writers, its...

Forts and sieges held a key position in ancient Indian warfare. Built on considerations of strategic location, topography, and the natural advantages provided by the site, forts would be heavily supplemented with man-made fortifications...

The siege of Antioch in 1097-1098 CE occurred during the First Crusade (1095-1102 CE) when the western Crusader knights were on their way to retake Jerusalem. The great metropolis of Antioch in northern Syria was heavily fortified, and it...

Xanadu (aka Shangdu, Shang-tu, and Kaiping) located in Inner Mongolia, northern China, was first the capital (1263-73) and then the summer capital (1274-1364) of the Mongol Empire. It came to prominence during the reign of Kublai Khan (r...

Dion is located at the foot of Mount Olympus in the north of Greece, in what would have been ancient Macedon. It takes its name from the most important Macedonian sanctuary dedicated to Zeus ("Dios” meaning "of Zeus”). Legend claims this...