Top 10 Greatest Ancient Warriors

Spartans are the ultimate warriors, bred for battle and born to kill. In training, they would be killed if caught stealing, not because they were stealing, but because they couldn't get away with it. They trained for weeks without food to fight hunger. Even as infants, if seen as not good enough, the infants would be thrown into the streets to die, hoping for some trespasser to claim them.

A couple of points against the Samurai below: One, the Samurai didn't beat the Mongols. The southwest Chinese lands united the southeast and took over. Two, the Samurai did not win every war. In fact, they lost almost as many as they won, including the Imperial Japanese Army.

The Spartans would never give up. Yes, the Battle of Thermopylae may seem overrated, but 100,000 vs. 300 and several hundred Arcadians, and the fact that thousands died by the will of Greek men defending their home, is one of the most fascinating stories in history. These killing machines were not to be trifled with.

The Samurai sought perfection in their one craft. If your craft was sword fighting, you were an expert in sword fighting. That would be the only thing you studied. Many think that Samurai were all-around good fighters, but this isn't exactly true. However, attaining true expertise in only one area allows you to penetrate good "all-around" fighters because you are better at your one craft than they are at any one thing they know.

The downside, of course, is that now you have an Achilles' heel. Because of the amount of time and dedication the Samurai dedicated to their one craft, I would say they were the best warriors. This is not even taking into account their fierce loyalty to their lord and their willingness to die to demonstrate that loyalty.

Shaka Zulu would make his troops run laps over and over in the African sun, and he would personally kill any of them that showed weakness. The Zulu were the Spartans of Africa.

The Spartans never faced a nation that used guns. The Zulus not only faced guns but also cannons and far stronger artillery than the Spartans ever faced.

Must be higher. Underrated in my opinion. These people were bred to kill. And what's more? Unlike Spartans, who never faced guns and bombs, the Zulus did.

These guys were brutes. They were very tall and would make you tremble in combat. They are almost equal to Spartans, if not more. They pillaged, plundered, and burned almost everything in their path. Imagine facing an almost giant with an axe, two spears, a long sword, and a battle shield.

There's a saying that it would be suicide to attack the convoy or spokesman of Ancient Egypt. The military system of this jet-black African achievement is underrated. The Old Kingdom is the oldest empire. During Egypt's ancient times, this civilization invented a form of the phalanx. They also had wheeled siege ladders and a prototype of the Assyrian siege pride.

Their division of the military was way ahead of their time. Through their scientific advancements, they invented the world's first warships. Their chariots were highly advanced. The military had a tactical solution for ambushes and survived the oldest recorded ambush. The archer corps of the military could shoot as far as 600 meters.

The military worked with speed and silent assassination, attacking when least expected. The tactics of the Ancient Egyptians were very advanced. Look at the tactics employed against the Sea Peoples. The Sea Peoples had destroyed many empires from Greece to the Hittites. The Ancient Egyptians and Sudanese also employed bioweapons in the form of poisoned arrows and anti-poisoning armor.

These people were innovators in artillery from the late classical era onwards. They were one of the earliest users of crossbows, fire lances, hand cannons, large artillery, and many more. One myth about the Chinese is that they just invented gunpowder while guns came from Europe. That's a lie. Check the history of guns and see that the prototypes were at least initiated in China way before Europe.

China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, united all of China with an amazing attack force and, of course, brilliant strategies. In one battle, his army buried so many bodies that the skeletons can still be seen on top of that mountain today.

The most underrated civilization in my opinion. Let's start with the basics. The Ashanti Empire was an empire from Ghana, covering almost all of Ghana, Togo, and Ivory Coast. The downside of this civilization was their lack of industrialization. They had a guild of blacksmiths who produced and restocked weapons, but they did not manufacture weapons and goods through machinery. They relied on their gold and human slaves to obtain weapons instead of industrializing. This was a huge error, but let's also look at their strengths.

The Ashanti are often not recognized as part of the ancient African giants because people underestimate them. Their organization is underestimated. Did you know they voted in their council to approve war, similar to the US Senate? On the battlefield, they exploited science with a well-studied form of reconnaissance. They had early snipers who took advantage of hiding places and shot from afar.

They employed world-class tactics such as columns used by Napoleon, pincer, hammer-and-anvil, encirclement, spam encirclement, and many more. They used both rifle and musket tactics (volley fire). Their military engineers were also notable. The Ashanti army is one of the most underrated civilizations in world and African history.

The SEALs got their knife fighting skills from them. That's why SEALs are the greatest knife fighters.

These are the Celts we're talking about - terrifying. On the field of battle, these guys can kill like nobody's business. They're kind of like Vikings, except, as the other comment mentioned, often naked. With horrifying body paint, they drive fear into their enemies' hearts. Similar to the Caledonians and the Picts, the Romans could never penetrate their homes because these barbarians were warriors from Hell.

The long tradition of training and preparing the body through spiritualism led the Shaolin monks to become the greatest martial artists in the world. Although they managed to decimate troops whenever they had to face them, they were not the greatest warriors in history. Their goal was tranquility (Taoism) and harmony (Buddhism), which were the founding principles of their fighting techniques. However, the martial monks were and are the best fighters ever (even though they still hate fighting).

Trained in martial arts modeled after animals, they can lay on a bed of spears and train longer and with more weapons than British S.A.S. Do I have to say more?

In the ancient world, every country, even Germany, was scared of Attila and his army, the Huns. That's why the Huns are the strongest warriors in history.