Thunderfoot said:
Ditch the graphic novels and pick up a few Western Civilization history books, the truth (or something like it) is much better than fiction (or something like it). Along those lines, any Homeric epic (The Illyid/The Odessy), or Greek mythological writings are a gold mine for a campaign such as this. This big thing to remember is that the equipment is stuck in the Bronze Age so Full Plate, Chain Mail and the like don't truly exist.
Weapons and armor are limited in number and type so the misc magic items are a must to improve basic stats and such. Players might have a hard time adjusting to the lack of long bows, long swords, crossbows, two handed swords, rapiers and the quarterstaff at first, but they'll get used to it eventually. Be careful that when planning encounter that this lack of equipment is taken into account, otherwise, it could get very deadly.
QFT
I run most of my campaigns in a very distorted version of the bronze age. Like Thunderfoot says, first thing, read some of the classical civ part of some college Western Civ textbooks, and definitely pick up the Illiad and Odyssey, you don't need to read the entire things, just enough to get a feel for the narrative. If you're really going in depth read Herodotus's
The Histories. Then you can pretty much go wild on that note.
If you want to do it right you'll need to rework the standard population distribution assumptions. No kingdoms no nations there are city-states and there are empires, which are really just collections of city-states that have been subjugated by a stronger city-state and forced to become subordinate cities of the empire. Spread the settlements out but concentrate people.
Using D&D categories the Greek city-states would have counted as between large towns and large cities with a great emphasis on the former and few of the latter. Surround city-states with clusters of hamlets but don't use thorps and make the hamlets on the large end of the category, people huddled together against the wild rather than spreading out. For example there were at any one time roughly 7k to 10k Spartan warriors and perhaps three times that many total Spartans. They were however supported by a very large population of terrified and downtrodden helots. Athens was a largely naval power, emphasize that naval might.
The Classical Empires(This is a sweeping generalization but largely good enough for gameplay purposes): The individual city-states should be very large and very centralized, put them largely in the metropolis category with populations of between 25k and roughly 100k for the largest. Highly autocratic with large theocratic power-bases. Three cornered power structure. Extremely powerful autocrat (King) balanced by powerful priestly organizations and a strong but limited aristocracy. These groups should be massively slaveholding, in fact just about everyone who is free and of any status should have slaves, their economy is built on large-scale slave labor that would make the pre-civil war American South look like pikers. Surrounding these large city-states have tight clusters of villages that reach out approximately three days march. At this point they should rapidly taper off into wilderness. This wilderness should be speckled with fortified small towns that are the power-bases of the aristocratic families surrounded by peasant hamlets. In all cases fields should be depicted as using high-output(for the time) methods and worked intensely.
Stone to Steel is a great resource for campaigns with tech levels that vary from the standard.
Arms and Equipment Guide 3e has useful tables that give a tech tree that will show you which weapons and armor should be excluded from certain eras.
For the Greeks, hoplites were expected to provide their own armor, weapons, and shields. These should pretty uniformly be bronze. Heavy shields, breastplates, gauntlets, helmets(have no core armor properties but should be encouraged for feel), if using the AEG 3e Dastana are appropriate if not precisely period for their armor properties. For weapons the spear is the king of the battlefield. Every warrior should have at least weapon focus(spear). No longswords, just shortswords and those are as a backup to the spear. Greek hoplites should carry a spear in one hand and their shield in the other in the shield hand they should carry three javelins. Combat should be opened with the javelin as far out as practical then keep the spear for close work. There are no longbows, just shortbows, and composite bows haven't been invented yet.
For the Classical Empires, these armies relied on masive numbers of basically untrained and frightened slaves or peasant conscripts(not much difference between them) and a core of noble charioteers with lightly armored but well trained and armed personal guards. There is no cavalry as is seen during the Roman empire or medieval period and the stirrup won't be invented for more than a millennia.
Peasant Levies: Most of these should be unarmored, of the ones with armor most should have wicker armor(treat as padded armor) a few of these should have leather armor but only a few. Most should have essentially farm implements, sickles or forks, of those left arm them with spears.
Noble Personal Guards Contingents: These were the elite of the classical empires, the picked men of the noble aristocracy that ran with the chariots forming a screening force for the noble and could generally turn aside the sort of peasant levies that were most of what the classical empires fielded. Arm them with handaxes to represent the short chopping swords favored for these forces. As well as a few javelins (they were valuable enough to get expendable weapons, peasant levies WERE expendable weapons).
Noble Charioteers: Chariots were the shock weapon of the classical empires of the period used by nobles due to their cost in both wealth and resources.
Egyptians favored light chariots, Single(medium single 5ft square) Chariots in D&D terms that were only large enough to carry a single noble who controlled the two horses by wrapping the reins around his waist and fired a shortbow while a screening force of chariot runners kept them from being overwhelmed by massed peasant levies.
Southern Mesopotamians preferred a medium chariot, Double(large, long 5ft by 10ft) chariot in D&D terms behind two horses, Their was a driver who also carried a shield(a good wooden one, not wicker like the peasants' shields) to try to keep fire off the noble who would begin with a bow and then switch to javelins from a baskets tied to the chariot rail.
Northern Mesopotamians favored a unique "heavy" chariot (in D&D terms also large but a 10ft by 10ft square) pulled by 4 horses(which presents a problem with D&D but either handwave it or change the number). These chariots were unlike other chariots lightly armored (count as 1/2 cover if using 3.0 cover rules) and held 3 people. The driver who also carried a shield, the noble who began with archery and graduated to javelin then spear as they closed with the enemy, and a third spearman who tried to cover the noble with a shield when possible but mostly threw javelins.
Charioteer Armor:
Egyptian the egyptian noble should be in light armor, studded leather or none at all but of good quality(masterwork). they were a mobility force not heavy on armor.
Mesopotamian the mesopotamian noble should be armoured fairly heavily, in a breastplate and have a heavy shield all of good(masterwork) quality. They should have a heavy chopping sword (use handaxe stats of bronze like all their equipment masterwork at the least) they may or may not have a spear, usually you only see a nobleman fighting afoot if their chariot has wrecked or been mobbed in which case they're just as likely to have lost it. The driver and or spearman should be armored in studded leather with a heavy chopping sword and a heavy shield like the noble(but not masterwork).
Note on Egyptian peasant Levies: Until well into the bronze age the majority of the Egyptian army(the cannon-fodder levies) were armed as much with stone as bronze, adjust accordingly.
