7 AD
Dalmatia
Hard fighting
When the attack came it was just as the sun’s growing intensity began to burn off the fog hanging stubbornly in the morning air. The panorama of the narrow valley began to materialize out of the thinning fog, revealing both the rugged terrain of the valley, and the rectangular masses of enemy infantry dressed in their various assortment of individual armor. Dalmatian tribesmen were not nearly as wealthy as their Greek cousins. When one might be encased in the full armor of a Greek warrior, five or six others of his kinsmen might be wearing various forms of leather armor, or no armor at all. But all gripped in their right hands the Greek sarissa¸ the eight-foot-long Grecian thrusting spear made famous by Greek armies all across the Mediterranean basin.
sariss
