Ancient Battlefields

[cmacq]

Battle of Carrhae/Harran; Rome vs Parthia 53 BC.

Provided is a general map with the location of Carrhae/Harran (from the Akkadian Harranu meaning, 'The Roads') marked with a green arrow. At this point Carrhae/Harran was a large town within the vassal kingdom of Osrhoene. However, this particular battle transpired in three phases, over a wide expanse, which included several days. The battlefield of the first phase and first day appears to have occurred about 14 miles southeast of Harran, near a modern village called Aslanli, along the road leading towards Seleucia.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...23911&t=p&z=11

Below is a map of the probable Carrhae/Harran battlefield of the first phase and first day located near Aslanli. This modern village is centered in a relatively flat valley nearly surrounded by a series of low ridges.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,0.130978&z=13

This view is of the probable Carrhae/Harran Battlefield, corner right foreground, from the south looking north with Harran in the distant background left corner.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=...cl=1&encType=1

The second phase of the battle on the first day, most likely occured several miles west and slightly south of the Aslanli Locus. These low hills and ridges appears to be the general setting for the tragic end of the ill-fated Publius column. The actual battlefield site seems to have been somewhere between the modern villages of Duzce and Zenginvoa.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...=13&iwloc=addr

This is a view of Carrhae/Harran where the third and final phase of the battle occured on the second day and night.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,0.065489&z=14

The actual site of the final phase of the battle may have occured about 2 miles south of Carrhae/Harran within the area near the Selgelen/Ballisur stream.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,0.187283&z=13

[GodEmperorLeto]

I'd like to see the location of the Caudine Forks. They are supposedly two defiles somewhere in Apulia where Gaius Pontius' Samnite army trapped a Roman army and forced them to pass under a yoke.

[cmacq]

How does this look...

Furculae Caudinae

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...3,0.32341&z=12

With a view from the west looking east and the first pass?

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=...cl=1&encType=1

A view from the west looking east towards the second pass?

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=...cl=1&encType=1

I selected this location based on the description, but there is something strange in this report. I think it may have something to do with the Roman supply train?

[cmacq]

Battle of Corinth; Allied Spartan army vs Macedonia 265 BC.

Below is ancient Corinth in the center of the map, and the probable site of the 265 BC battlefield.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,0.187283&z=13

This is a close up photo of ancient Corinth.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...8,0.02341&z=16

A view from the south looking north towards ancient Corinth in the center, with the Bay of Corinth in the background.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=...cl=1&encType=1

[cmacq]

Battle of Raphia or Battle of Gaza; Seleucid Asia vs Ptolemaic Egypt 217 BC.

Below is a map of the Raphia battlefield, located near the modern city of Rafah.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,0.097075&z=14

A view of the location of Raphia and its port, Tell Rafah, from the Mediterranean Sea, looking from the northwest to the southeast.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=...cl=1&encType=1

[Vortexmind]

This is the location of the battle of river Trebbia (18 December 218 B.C. , Hannibal vs Romani), which is also featured in the vanilla RTW version.

[QuintusSertorius]

The only problem is that many of the battlefields might no longer remotely resemble how they were at the time. Even when you're able to accurately locate them, 2000 or more years is a long time - bridging even into geological time for the kind of changes that can take place.

North Africa, for example, has succumbed in swathes to the Sahara where it was once fertile and productive. Climactic and geological changes aren't trivial over that span of time.