Ancient warfare Chinese river valley civilizations would adopt nomadic "pants" for their cavalry units and soldiers. In general, most features of the hoplite panoply of classical Greek antiquity, were already known during the Late Bronze Age by Mycenaean Greeks (c. 1600–1100 BC). Mycenaean Greek society invested in the development of military infrastructure, while military production and logistics were supervised directly from the palatial centers. Infantry did almost all of the fighting in Greek battles. The Greeks did not have any notable cavalry tradition except the Thessalians. Hoplites, Greek infantry, fought with a long spear and a large shield, the hoplon also called
Ancient Greek warfare undermanned. However, the lightly armored Persian infantry proved no match for the heavily armored hoplites, and the Persian wings were quickly routed. The Greek wings then turned against the elite troops in the Persian centre, which had held the Greek centre until then. Marathon demonstrated to the Greeks the lethal potential of the hoplite, and firmly demonstrated that the Persians were not, after all, invincible. The revenge of the Persians was postponed 10 years by internal conflicts in the Persian Empire, until Darius's son Xerxes returned to Greece in 480 BC with a staggeringly large army (modern estimates suggest between