Decisive Battles: The Ancient World

Hannibal's victory at the Battle of Cannae, 216 BC: In a classic example of double-envelopment maneuver, an under-fortified Hannibal inflicted the greatest ever defeat on the forces of Rome, who marched eight legions strong into their surprising defeat.

Alexander's victory over Darius III of Persia at the Battle of Gaugamela, 331 BC: Gaugamela was the greatest battle fought by Alexander the Great and it gave him control of the Persian Empire. Darius raised a titanic army against Alexander and picked the ideal spot for his cavalry-led force, but it was not enough.

Battle of Marathon, 490 BC: The first great invasion of the Persian Empire was not thwarted by the Spartans, but by the Athenians. In a heroic effort, the Hoplite warriors of the city-state triumphed in a fight against both greater numbers and the march of time.

The gladiator Spartacus leads a revolt of slaves against their Roman masters.

Battle of Thermopylae, 480 BC: In one of history's greatest displays of military heroism, 300 Spartans outside Thermopylae held off the vengeful Persians until the last Spartan had been killed.

Battle of Chalons, AD 451: No ruler in history represents the barbarian brutality as much as Attila the Hun, who swept through 5th-century Europe and emerged holding its future in his grasp.

Battle of Carrhae, 53 BC: Although he may have been the richest man in Rome, Crassus was the poor relation in the First Triumvirate. He needed military laurels to raise him to the vanity cost the lives of seven legions, his son and his own.

Battle of Adrianople and the Sack of Rome AD 378 to 410: Corruption drove the hungry horde of Visigoths to rebel against Rome and pride drove the Emperor Valens, heading a fractured Roman Empire, to take them on without support.

Battle of Pharsalus, 48 BC: Of all Rome's many battles, perhaps the most important was internal. When Julius Caesar went head-to-head, with Gnaeus Pompey, the outcome would change the fate of the Western world.

Battle of Cynoscephalae, 197 BC: In a classic military conflict between two Ancient World superpowers, the great Macedonian phalanx clashed mightily against the heavily fortified Roman legion.

Battle of Watling Street, AD 61: In the farthest flung province of the Roman Empire - Britain - a warrior queen named Boudicca rose in revolt.

Battle of Kadesh, 1274 BC: As one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs, Rames II confronted the biggest menace to his reign as the Hittite Wing Muwwitallah threatened to break away from the hegemony of the Egyptian empire.

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, AD 9: The patrician leader Arminius, or Herman the German, was at the helm of one of the darkest ambushes in the history of Rome, dispelling the aura of invincibility that had long marched ahead of the vaunted legions.