Mega Mania

What?

Gupta military organization The Military of the Gupta Empire The stalemate was eventually broken by the Gupta Empire, although they never were able to take over the central Duncan Plateau, Southwest or Southern regions. Forming in the Northeast of India, the Gupta Empire (320 to 550 CE) is considered a golden age of Indian and Hindu history. This was a time when Indian culture flourished in all areas but like all empires it was made possible by a powerful military. The military of the Gupta Empire remained based on the traditional four part armies of the past; however the chariot had been replaced by mounted cavalry by this time. They modeled the dress (trousers) and armor of their cavalry after the well clad and equipped Kushans. However, despite the use of horse archers by their enemies such as the Scythian, Parthian, and Hepthalite (White Huns or Huna) they never developed their own. The Gupta favored armored cavalry forces that attacked with lances or swords. The Gupta military continued to rely heavily on infantry archers, which was an effective counter to mounted archers. One advancement the Gupta military made they made in archery was creating the steel bow; this weapon could match the power of the composite bow while not being subject to the problem of warping do to humidity. This incredibly powerful bow was capable of excellent range and could penetrate thick armor. However, steel bows would have only been used by elite or noble class warriors while common archers continued to use the highly regarded bamboo longbow. Iron shafts were substituted for the long bamboo cane arrows when armor penetration was needed, particularly against armored elephants and cavalry. Fire arrows also were employed by the Gupta, their long bamboo cane arrows being particularly well suited for use in these operations. Gupta archers were protected by infantry units equipped with shields, javelins, and swords. They had no particular uniforms and dressed in accordance to their indigenous customs. Some warriors wore a type of tunic spotted with black aloe wood paste, which could be a type of tie-dye (or bandhni) that may have functioned as an early type of camouflage. Indian Gupta era infantry rarely wore pants, instead going into battle with bare legs. Skullcaps (more common) or thickly wrapped turbans were worn around the head to give some protection. Shields were generally curved or rectangular and featured intricate designs, sometimes decorated with a dragon’s head. The swords could be long swords, curved swords or daggers. Elite troops and nobles would have had access to armor, such as chainmail, although the hot Indian climate can make heavy armor unbearable. Use of a breast plate and simple helmet would have been more common. They had access to better steel weapons as well, such as broadswords, axes and the Khanda, a uniquely Indian sword with a broad double blade and blunt point. The Khanda was a slashing weapon and considered very prestigious. Steal was developed in the Tamil region of Southern India between 300 BC and the start of the common era. Steal weapons were highly prized and traded throughout the Near east and ancient Europe. Indian steal was legendary for its tensile strength and knowledge of it fueled a quest for improved metallurgy across the Near east and Europe. By the time of the Gupta’s steel weapons would have been more come common in Indian warfare, but still only used by elite warriors. War elephants continued to be used and pacaderm armor was advanced throughout this a period. Elephants remained a component of the combined arms tactics employed by Gupta generals. The use of war elephants coordinated with armored cavalry and infantry supported foot archers is likely the reason for the Gupta Empires success in war against both Hindu kingdoms and foreign armies invading from the Northwest. Another reason may have been a higher level of discipline compared to their tribal rivals. At its height the Gupta Empire had ¾ million soldiers. The Gupta empire also maintained a navy to control water ways and their coasts. They also had a high level of understanding of siege warfare, employing catapults and other sophisticated war machines. The Gupta Empire eventually collapsed in the face of a Hepthalite (Huna or White Huns) onslaught. This was another of the Asiatic hordes and was probably a confederation of nomadic tribes. Their origins are obscure, although their language is likely of East Iranian origin. They may have gone by the name of White Huns in order to associate themselves with the feared Huns of Turkic origins. The Hepthalite were initially defeated by Skandagupta which has been seen to mean that militarily the Indian armies could defeat them and that the fall of the Gupta Empire was due to internal dissolution. However, the collapse of the Roman and Chinese empires at the same time and to branches of the same invaders seems to point to something more. Military costumes: In previous centuries, except occasionally in the Satavahana age, there was no fixed uniform for the indigenous army. It was the Kushan army, well clad and equipped, that became the prototype on which the new military uniform of the Guptas was based. The king himself adopted the Kushan royal costume in formal occasions as status symbol. In early period the Gupta soldier had worn the antariya with his bare chest inadequately covered by the six jewel-striped channavira. This evolved into the more efficient foreign-influenced kancuka with trousers or short drawers, jhangia, and high boots, with a helmet or cap, and sometimes a fillet to tie back the hair. Later the soldier’s uniform was either a short-or-long-sleeved knee-length tunic, kancuka, which had a centre front opening with V-shaped or round neck. The tunics were sometimes spotted with black aloe wood paste, which could be a type of tie-dye, or bandhni as it is known today. This may have been their version of the camouflage on military uniforms. It is possible that these tunics were worn over a brief antariyas, as the foot soldiers seldom wore trousers to cover their bare legs. Instead of knee-length kancuka a short tight-fitting blouse, cholaka, was sometimes worn with the short antariya. Around the waist, the kayabandh could be wound once or twice, holding a short dagger or curved sword. Shields were curved or rectangular, the former sometimes decorated with a dragon’s head. Some soldiers continued to wear only the short antariya, which was often striped, and with this indigenous garment the wheel-type disc earring were still worn. Head-dresses were normally a simple skull cap or just a scarf or cloth wound around the head like a turban. The cavalry wore a more elaborate dress, closer in style to the original Parthian-Kushan dress being a mid-calf length quilted coat with long ruched sleeves. With this was worn a fillet or head band, or sometimes a white turban. Others in the cavalry wore more colorful and diverse garments. Mid-thigh length tunics of brocade or printed cloth (for example, yellow with blue dots, green with checks in which a flowered motif was set in each compartment, or yellow with a pattern of birds, rosettes, lozenge shapes mainly in blue, yellow ochre or white), trousers and an uttariya-a bossed flowers, completed their very colorful uniforms. The elephant drivers were picturesque in their short-sleeved tight-fitting cholaka with decorative bands at the neck, hem, and sleeves. With this were worn short drawers of plain or gold-striped cloth and a skull cap or scarf on the head. The king himself, when attired for battle wore a short, tight –sleeved kancuka and an elaborate turban with serpent. His bodyguard carried curved swords like the Nepalese khukri and shields of rhinoceros hide in checked designs. His sword-bearer wore a patterned tight tunic with pointed ends reaching to the knees, and the kayabandh wound twice around the waist. The leaders or chieftains of the various contingents in the army were decked in pearl-embroidered tunics made from the famous stavarkha cloth of Sassanian origin and chaddars of many colors, or in the complete Central Asian outfit consisting of a dark blue quilted tunics with a V-shaped neck and long full sleeves with soft dark trousers and a saffron turban of Indian origin instead of Central Asian conical cap. Armour was worn as further protection. It was known as the cinacola, probably of Chinese origin. It was sleeveless covering the front and back, and was made of metal. A helmet for soldiers was known as sirastrajala. Bows were of two kinds: the simple one-piece bow and the classic double-curved bow probably made of three pieces. Infantry and Guard Indian Khukri Indian Shield

Parthian Editor-Only-Unit Ustaran-e Zrehbaran (Parthian Camel Cataphract) Parthian additional levies Mardian Slingers (Falakan-e Marda)

Sassanid Saddle

HELMET The helmet was a standard item in Sasanian armor (Ṭabari, tr. Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, pp. 248-49). Finds of early Sasanian helmets include one from Dura-Europos consisting of two halves riveted to two bars and provided with a pointed apex; a mail piece was attached to its lower edge. Many figures represented on Sasanian rock reliefs of the 3rd-4th centuries C.E. wear hemispherical helmets with neckpieces and bindings along the base. On Naqš-e Rostam No. 5, the cap is ornamented and has a knob on the top, while a mail piece is attached to the lower edge (Herrmann, 1977, p. 7, Pls. 1-3). The greater ayvān of Ṭāq-e Bostān attributed to Ḵosrow II (591-628) shows a different kind of helmet, namely the “segmented” or “‘four-spanged helmet” [spangen helmet] (@#$%ai and Horiuchi, 1972, Pl. 36; @#$%ai et al., 1984, pp. 69-70); several helmets of this type are known. These are egg-shaped, made of four vertical iron segments fastened below with a horizontal bronze rim, from which come wide bronze bands crossing at the top. To these bands the iron segments are riveted; the latter are covered with thin, silver leaves for ornamentation. The horizontal rim has holes in its lower part through which a piece of chain mail extending from the shoulders was attached to the helmet (Granicsay, 1948-49, pp. 272-81; Harper, 1978, pp. 89-90, fig. 31; Overlaet, 1982, pp. 193-96, Pls. I-V). For a detailed discussion about the origin and typology of Sasanian helmets, see von Gall, 1990, pp. 69-72. Monumental art of Central Asia indicates that in that region several other types of helmets were used in the 6th-7th centuries. The most common was a sphero-conical helmet, which was hemispheroid in its lower half but gradually turned into a cone towards the top and was surmounted with a finial ornament. The rim was decorated with festoons. Often it was provided with a narrow bar protecting the nose and with cheekpieces. A piece of chain mail attached to the helmet covered the neck, shoulders, and almost the whole face except the eyes. Such helmets were most often constructed of metal plates, although there were also some made of multiple scales mounted on leather background (Shishkin, 1963, p. 163, Pl. XVII; Belenitskiĭ, 1973, Pls. 8, 9, 12, 21; Raspopova, 1980, p. 84, figs. 57-59). Helmet (Transition period) The egg-shaped helmet had developed during the Parthian (ca. 247 BCE- 224 CE) and Sasanian (224-651 CE) periods. They were composed of two (Bandhelm) or four (Spangenhelm) iron plates. The joints were covered with metal bands that, together with the rim and the cap on top, formed the helmet’s frame. Extant helmets are decorated with iron details combined with brass or gilt. More sumptuous objects had a silver binding with embossed scaly ornaments. This type of decoration was extremely popular in the middle of the 1st millennium CE within a vast territory stretching from China to the British Isles, and is typical of the Migration Period (4th-9th centuries CE; see ARMOR). The egg shape narrowed to the top, sometimes flattened at the sides according to the Parthian tradition, or was strictly hemispherical. The lower edge was usually straight. Some helmets have a riveted rectangular plate to protect the forehead, sometimes extended to serve as a nose-guard, or eye cusps with reinforced rims. Eye cusps were an international feature of helmets dating to the mid-first millennium CE. The nape, neck, and throat were protected by mail (aventail). The face was visible, yet in some cases all but the eyes were covered. The conical helmet, in contrast, emerged at the beginning of the Muslim expansion over the vast stretches of the Eurasian steppes inhabited by Turkic-speaking nomads. A conical bowl was made of four to six plates with a conical finial; a holder for plumes of feathers or horsehair was attached. The plates were joined by narrow vertical metal strips, and often in a symmetrical fashion close to the nearly triangular bulges that marked the places of paired rivets. These helmets had almost always eye cusps or a forehead plate with nasal, while the mail was similar in both helmet types. Surfaces were covered with copper and silver, while gilt ornaments on strips of silver or copper were fixed alongside the vertical joints, and iron details were combined with brass or copper. The 7th- and 8th-century Sogdian paintings in Central Asia and a helmet in the British Museum, which was found in Iraq in the Nineveh ruins and is dated to the 6th or 7th century, indicate the area in which conical helmets were in use. (This helmet caused errors in the history of helmets, because for a long time it was considered an Assyrian artifact.) Conical helmets appeared in Iran because Turks dominated Central Asia between the 6th and 8th centuries and enjoyed considerable military prestige. Both Sasanian and Muslim rulers maintained wide contacts with Turkish military contingents.

DEHQĀN, arabicized form of Syriac dhgnʾ (Margoliouth, p. 84a), borrowed from Pahlavi dehgān (older form dahīgān). The original meaning was “pertaining to deh"(< OPers. dahyu), the latter term not in the later sense of “village,” but in the original sense of “land.” i. IN THE SASANIAN PERIOD The term dehqān was used in the late Sasanian period to designate a class of landed magnates (Mojmal, ed. Bahār, p. 420) considered inferior in rank to āzādān,bozorgān (Zand ī Wahman Yasn 4.7, 4.54), and kadag-xwadāyān “householders” (Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag 15.10, where dahīgān should be read for dādagān). According to some early Islamic sources, the rank of the dehqān in the Sasanian period was also inferior to that of the šahrīgān “chief of the small cantons” (Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīḵ I, p. 203; Masʿūdī, ed. Pellat, I, sec. 662; Christensen, Iran Sass., p. 140). The origin of the dehqān class is usually attributed in both Zoroastrian Pahlavi books of the 9th century and early Islamic sources to Wēkard/t, brother of Hōšang, the legendary Iranian king (Dēnkard, ed. Madan, pp. 438, 594, 688; Bīrūnī, Āṯār, pp. 220-21; Masʿūdī, ed. Pellat, I, sec. 662; Christensen, pp. 68, 134, 151, 156). In some sources the innovation is credited to Manūčehr (Ṯāʿālebī, p. 6; Ṭabarī, I, p. 434; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, p. 345; Ebn al-Balḵī, p. 37). Nevertheless, as the termdehgān is not attested in early Sasanian documents but is sometimes mentioned in the Pahlavi books and frequently occurs in descriptions of late Sasanian administration in early Islamic sources, it is admissible to suppose that dehqāns emerged as a social class as a result of land reforms in the time of Ḵosrow I (531-79). He is reported to have admonished future kings that they should protect thedehqāns, just as they would protect kingship, because they were like brothers (Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 6). According to one source (Mojmal, ed. Bahār, p. 73), his own mother had been the daughter of a dehqān descended from Frēdon. In the late Sasanian period dehqāns and princes (wāspuhragān; Ar. ahl al-boyūtāt) used to have audience with the king on the second day of the Nowrūz and Ḵorram-rūz (also Ḵorrah-rūz, Navad-rūz) festivals; the latter, celebrated on the first day of the tenth month (Day), was their special feast day, on which the king ate and drank with thedehqāns and cultivators (Bīrūnī, Āṯār, pp. 218, 225; for this feast, see idem, I, 1954, p. 264; Gardīzī, ed. Ḥabībī, pp. 239, 254; Qazvīnī,p. 83). Management of local affairs was the dehqāns’ hereditary responsibility, and peasants were obliged to obey them (cf. Ṭabarī, I, p. 434; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, p. 345; Ebn al-Balḵī, p. 37), but their landed estates must have been smaller than those of noble landowners. They probably represented the government among the peasants, and their main duty was to collect taxes (Christensen, Iran Sass., pp. 112-13). They were divided into five subgroups according to social status, each distinguished by dress (Masʿūdī, ed. Pellat, I, par. 662). The Arab conquest (q.v.) of the Sasanian empire began with sporadic attacks on the lands of the dehqāns of the Sawād, the cultivated areas of southern Iraq. After the defeat of the Persian army and the gradual disappearance of the nobles who administered the country, the local gentry, that is, the dehqāns, assumed a more important political and social role in their districts, towns, and villages. Some were able to protect their settlements from the conquering armies by surrendering and agreeing to pay the poll tax (jezya). For example, the dehqān of Zawābī in Iraq made a treaty with the Arab commander ʿOrwa b. Zayd, in which he agreed to pay a tax of 4 dirhams for each inhabitant of his district. Besṭām, dehqān of Bors, also in Iraq, agreed with Zahra to construct a bridge for his army. When the Arab forces arrived at Mahrūḏ near Baghdad the local dehqān agreed to pay a sum of money to Hāšem b. ʿOtba, in order to deter him from killing any of the district’s inhabitants. Šīrzād, the dehqān of Sābāṭ, a village near Madāʾen (see CTESIPHON), was able to save 100,000 peasants from the Arabs. There are similar reports for other parts of the Sasanian empire, for example, Sīstān, Herat, and Balḵ (Balāḏorī, Fotūhá, ed. Monajjed, pp. 307, 318, 324, 484, 516; Ṭabarī, I, pp. 2421, 2426, 2461; Gardīzī, ed. Ḥabībī, p. 102). Dehqāns who refused to collaborate with the Arabs either fled or lost their lives (e.g., Balāḏorī, ed. Monajjed, pp. 324, 420, 422, 464, 466, 514; Ṭabarī, I, pp. 2421-23). The fact that the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III (632-51), sought support from the dehqāns of Isfahan and Kermān is evidence of the rising power of this class at the end of the Sasanian empire (Ṭabarī, I, pp. 2875-77).

Sassanid shields: The shield design from A & A Miniatures, although it looks a little bit conservative but in my humble opinion they are ideal for Sassanid elite warriors.

Warfare: Sassanids Here's a selected articles from George Rawlinson In the character of their warfare, the Persians of the Sassanian period did not greatly differ from the same people under the Achaemenian kings. The principal changes which time had brought about were an almost entire disuse of the war chariot, [PLATE XLVI. Fig. 3.] and the advance of the elephant corps into a very prominent and important position. Four main arms of the service were recognized, each standing on a different level: viz. the elephants, the horse, the archers, and the ordinary footmen. The elephant corps held the first position. It was recruited from India, but was at no time very numerous. Great store was set by it; and in some of the earlier battles against the Arabs the victory was regarded as gained mainly by this arm of the service. It acted with best effect in an open and level district; but the value put upon it was such that, however rough, mountainous, and woody the country into which the Persian arms penetrated, the elephant always accompanied the march of the Persian troops, and care was taken to make roads by which it could travel. The elephant corps was under a special chief, known as the Zend-hapet, or "Commander of the Indians," either because the beasts came from that country, or because they were managed by natives of Hindustan. The Persian cavalry in the Sassanian period seems to have been almost entirely of the heavy kind. [PLATE XLVI., Fig. 4.] We hear nothing during these centuries of those clouds of light horse which, under the earlier Persian and under the Parthian monarchy, hung about invading or retreating armies, countless in their numbers, agile in their movements, a terrible annoyance at the best of times, and a fearful peril under certain circumstances. The Persian troops which pursued Julian were composed of heavily armed cavalry, foot archers, and elephants; and the only light horse of which we have any mention during the disastrous retreat of his army are the Saracenic allies of Sapor. In these auxiliaries, and in the Cadusians from the Caspian region, the Persians had always, when they wished it, a cavalry excellently suited for light service; but their own horse during the Sassanian period seems to have been entirely of the heavy kind, armed and equipped, that is, very much as Chosroes II. is seen to bo at Takht-i-Bostan. The horses themselves wore heavily armored about their head, neck, and chest; the rider wore a coat of mail which completely covered his body as far as the hips, and a strong helmet, with a vizor, which left no part of the face exposed but the eyes. He carried a small round shield on his left arm, and had for weapons a heavy spear, a sword, and a bow and arrows. He did not fear a collision with the best Roman troops. The Sassanian horse often charged the infantry of the legions with success, and drove it headlong from the field of battle. In time of peace, the royal guards were more simply accoutred. [see PLATE XLVI.]The archers formed the elite of the Persian infantry. They were trained to deliver their arrows with extreme rapidity, and with an aim that was almost unerring. The huge wattled shields, adopted by the Achaemenian Persians from the Assyrians, still remained in use; and from behind a row of these, rested upon the ground and forming a sort of loop-holed wall, the Sassanian bowmen shot their weapons with great effect; nor was it until their store of arrows was exhausted that the Romans, ordinarily, felt themselves upon even terms with their enemy. Sometimes the archers, instead of thus fighting in line, were intermixed with the heavy horse, with which it was not difficult for them to keep pace. They galled the foe with their constant discharges from between the ranks of the horsemen, remaining themselves in comparative security, as the legions rarely ventured to charge the Persian mailed cavalry. If they were forced to retreat, they still shot backwards as they fled; and it was a proverbial saying with the Romans that they were then especially formidable.The ordinary footmen seem to have been armed with swords and spears, perhaps also with darts. They were generally stationed behind the archers, who, however, retired through their ranks when close fighting began. They had little defensive armor; but still seem to have fought with spirit and tenacity, being a fair match for the legionaries under ordinary circumstances, and superior to most other adversaries.It is uncertain how the various arms of the service were organized internally. We do not hear of any divisions corresponding to the Roman legions or to modern regiments; yet it is difficult to suppose that there were not some such bodies. Perhaps each satrap of a province commanded the troops raised within his government, taking the actual lead of the cavalry or the infantry at his discretion. The Crown doubtless appointed the commanders-in-chief—the Sparapets, Spaha-pets, or Sipehbeds, as well as the other generals (arzbeds), the head of the commissariat (hambarapet or hambarahapet), and the commander of the elephants (zendkapet). The satraps may have acted as colonels of regiments under the arzbeds, and may probably have had the nomination of the subordinate (regimental) officers.The great national standard was the famous "leathern apron of the blacksmith," originally unadorned, but ultimately covered with jewels, which has been described in a former chapter. This precious palladium was, however, but rarely used, its place being supplied for the most part by standards of a more ordinary character. These appear by the monuments to have been of two kinds. Both consisted primarily of a pole and a cross-bar; but in the one kind the crossbar sustained a single ring with a bar athwart it, while below depended two woolly tassels; in the other, three striated balls rose from the cross-bar, while below the place of the tassels was taken by two similar balls. It is difficult to say what these emblems symbolized, or why they were varied. In both the representations where they appear the standards accompany cavalry, so that they cannot reasonably be assigned to different arms of the service. That the number of standards carried into battle was considerable may be gathered from the fact that on one occasion, when the defeat sustained was not very complete, a Persian army left in the enemy's hands as many as twenty-eight of them.During the Sassanian period there was nothing very remarkable in the Persian tactics. The size of armies generally varied from 30,000 to 60,000 men, though sometimes 100,000, and on one occasion as many as 140,000, are said to have been assembled. The bulk of the troops were footmen, the proportion of the horse probably never equalling one third of a mixed army. Plundering expeditions were sometimes undertaken by bodies of horse alone; but serious invasions were seldom or never attempted unless by a force complete in all arms; comprising, that is, horse, foot, elephants, and artillery. To attack the Romans to any purpose, it was always necessary to engage in the siege of towns; and although, in the earlier period of the Sassanian monarchy, a certain weakness and inefficiency in respect of sieges manifested itself, yet ultimately the difficulty was overcome, and the Persian expeditionary armies, well provided with siege trains, compelled the Roman fortresses to surrender within a reasonable time. It is remarkable that in the later period so many fortresses were taken with apparently so little difficulty—Daras, Mardin, Amida, Carrhse, Edessa, Hierapolis, Berhasa, Theodosiopolis, Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Caesaraea Mazaca, Chalcedon; the siege of none lasting more than a few months, or costing the assailants very dear. The method used in sieges was to open trenches at a certain distance from the walls, and to advance along them under cover of hurdles to the ditch, and fill it up with earth and fascines. Escalade might then be attempted; or movable towers, armed with rams or balistae, might be brought up close to the walls, and the defences battered till a breach was effected. Sometimes mounds were raised against the walls to a certain height, so that their upper portion, which was their weakest part, might be attacked, and either demolished or escaladed. If towns resisted prolonged attacks of this kind, the siege was turned into a blockade, lines of circumvallation being drawn round the place, water cut off, and provisions prevented from entering. Unless a strong relieving army appeared in the field, and drove off the assailants, this plan was tolerably sure to be successful.Not much is known of the private life of the later Persians. Besides the great nobles and court officials, the strength of the nation consisted in its dilchans or landed proprietors, who for the most part lived on their estates, seeing after the cultivation of the soil, and employing thereon the free labor of the peasants. It was from these classes chiefly that the standing army was recruited, and that great levies might always be made in time of need. Simple habits appear to have prevailed among them; polygamy, though lawful, was not greatly in use; the maxims of Zoroaster, which commanded industry, purity, and piety, were fairly observed. Women seem not to have been kept in seclusion, or at any rate not in such seclusion as had been the custom under the Parthians, and as again became usual under the Arabs. The general condition of the population was satisfactory. Most of the Sassanian monarchs seem to have been desirous of governing well; and the system inaugurated by Anushirwan, and maintained by his successors, secured the subjects of the Great King from oppression, so far as was possible without representative government. Provincial rulers were well watched and well checked; tax-gatherers were prevented from exacting more than their due by a wholesale dread that their conduct would be reported and punished; great pains were taken that justice should be honestly administered; and in all cases where an individual felt aggrieved at a sentence an appeal lay to the king. On such occasions the cause was re-tried in open court, at the gate, or in the great square; the king, the Magi, and the great lords hearing it, while the people were also present. The entire result seems to have been that, so far as was possible under a despotism, oppression was prevented, and the ordinary citizen had rarely any ground for serious complaint.But it was otherwise with the highest class of all. The near relations of the monarch, the great officers of the court, the generals who commanded armies, were exposed without defence to the monarch's caprice, and held their lives and liberties at his pleasure. At a mere word or sign from him they were arrested, committed to prison, tortured, blinded, or put to death, no trial being thought necessary where the king chose to pronounce sentence. The intrinsic evils of despotism thus showed themselves even under the comparatively mild government of the Sassanians; but the class exposed to them was a small one, and enjoyed permanent advantages, which may have been felt as some compensation to it for its occasional sufferings.

Sassanid Iconography and motifs: FARR(AH)

Sassanid citadel, Arg-E-Bam http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1208/gallery/ http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/4000/4112/IkoIranquake_2003361_lrg.jpg

Mercenary Camp? or did you mean Ptolemaic Military Settlement?

Ethicity in Ptolemaic Army.pdf Greek Immigrants in Egypt.pdf

You should read this: iii. The Army and Navy78 The native military caste, whom the Greeks called machimoi, still, as we have seen, existed as a distinct body, when Ptolemy set up his rule in Egypt. It is still doubtful to what extent native Egyptian soldiers were used in the Ptolemaic armies before Philopator. On the one hand, Polybius speaks as if the arming of Egyptians as combatants by Philopator in 217 was a momentous innovation; on the other hand, we have the statement of Diodorus that at the battle of Gaza (312), the army of Ptolemy included "a large body of Egyptians, some employed in the transport service, and others armed and serviceable for fighting." It may be, of course, that Ptolemy Soter had at first — or in the special emergency of 312 — used native troops, but afterwards given up the experiment, so that a century later it seemed an absolute departure from Ptolemaic tradition when Philopator put native soldiers in the field. Or the innovation may have consisted in natives being then for the first time given Macedonian armour and organized as a regular phalanx, whereas before they had been only lightly armed, perhaps in the ineffective old Egyptian way, and used for subordinate operations, scouting, etc. p166Lesquier's theory is that native machimoi were employed as combatants from Ptolemy I onwards, and that the innovation of Philopator consisted in his now arming Egyptians indiscriminately, not machimoi only. But this theory hardly fits in with the account of Polybius. In any case, even in the earlier days of the dynasty, machimoi were employed as policemen, and apparently as marines on board the war-fleet.79 Of the native troops we have a few sporadic notices in documents belonging to the later days of the dynasty. They were organized in corps called laarchiai, each under a commander called a laarchēs.80 (The Greek word for "peoples," laoi, was ordinarily used to denote the native population.) The machimoi, who are found as military allotment-holders in the Fayûm under Euergetes II, have native names.81 If Lesquier is right, the term machimoi had come in the last century B.C. to change its meaning. Instead of denoting a native military caste, it now meant all those soldiers whose allotments were, like the allotments of the irrigate machimoi, of 30 aruras or under — including even Greek machimoi.82 This was one sign of that process which, under the later Ptolemies, seemed to be going some day to fuse Greeks and natives into one Egyptian people — had the process not been checked by Rome. The armies with which the first Ptolemy fought against rival chiefs consisted mainly, as we have seen, of Macedonian troops got together from the soldiery which had been far-flung, since Alexander, over the Nearer East. A large number of these he settled, as military colonists, upon the soil of Egypt, and the process of military colonization extended further under Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III. Even after Raphia, the strength of a Ptolemaic army was still in its European troops. We must distinguish between the regular and the mercenary troops. The regular army, as a whole, was always nominally "Macedonian," but it came, as a matter of fact, to be composed of many elements beside the Macedonian. Some of it was recruited from among the Graeco-Macedonian citizens of Alexandria or Ptolemais. The great majority of regular p167soldiers, other than those of Macedonian blood, were Greeks or men of the Balkan hill-country. The Thracians were seemingly the largest element after the Macedonians,83 and, amongst the Greeks, the Cretans. There was a small proportion of Asiatics, including Jews.84 The cavalry had rank above the infantry, as may be seen by the fact that cavalry soldiers had larger allotments of land. A cavalry corps (hipparchia) is sometimes described by a number — the Second, Third, Fourth, etc. — sometimes by a special nationality — "the hipparchy of the Mysians," "the hipparchy of the Thracians," and so on. As early as the beginning of the reign of Philopator the hipparchies with racial names had come to include soldiers of all races indiscriminately,85 by they may have retained the armour and manner of fighting characteristic of the race from which they had originallyº been recruited. The regular infantry (pezoi, "foot-soldiers"), armed in the Macedonian way with the long pike (sarissa), constituted the heavy phalanx in a Ptolemaic line of battle. (At Raphia thephalanx numbers 20,000 men.) It was organized in chiliarchies, denoted by numbers. The Greek word for "officer" (hēgēmōn) came to be specially used of infantry officers in contrast with cavalry commanders, hipparchoi. One of the problems of papyrology is what the words ep' andrōn ("over men"), which sometimes follow the title hipparch or hegemon, mean. The prevalent opinion to‑day is that it means "on active service."86 The generals who held the supreme commands in the Ptolemaic army were often soldiers of fortune from the Greek lands overseas — not condottieri exactly in this case, because they command the king's troops, not bands they had levied themselves and brought with them. In 218 the men who take the chief part in reorganizing the Ptolemaic army are Greeks from the old Greek lands — a Magnesian, a Boeotian, an Achaean, an Argive, a Thessalian, two Cretans; p168and in the next reign we find as chief of the army the Aetolian Scopas, who had taken a leading part in his own country before he came to Egypt. Beside their regular army, formed of men settled in Egypt (Macedonians, Greeks, etc.), and of native troops, the Ptolemies used mercenary soldiers on a large scale. The mercenaries consisted of troops recruited by some condottiere at one of the soldier-markets of the Greek world — Taenarum in the Peloponnesus, or Aspendus in Asia Minor — as a speculation on his own account; having formed his band, he would take service with it under any king or city who might offer him the most profitable terms. The wealth of the house of Ptolemy made it possible to hire soldiers of this kind from oversea in large numbers. For certain kinds of troops, expert in the use of a particular arm, required generally in the warfare of those days, the Ptolemies had regularly to resort to mercenary corps, recruited, in the first instance at any rate, from the peoples after which they were called — Cretan bowmen, Thracians with their large shields and straight double-edged swords (rhomphaiai), Gauls, tall fair-haired men of the North, with long narrow shields and swords of an extraordinary length, dreaded more than any other people as fighters, but liable to be a danger to their employer no less than to his enemies. At Raphia, Ptolemy IV has 10,000 mercenaries (horse and foot), of whom 3000 are Cretan and 6000 Thracians and Gauls. Mercenary soldiers in these days might often be retained by the king who hired them for periods of years. Of the 6000 mercenary foot-soldiers who fought for Ptolemy at Raphia, no less than 4000 had plots of land assigned them in Egypt, like soldiers of the regular army. Certain regiments of picked men constituted the Royal Guard, and were stationed regularly near the king's person — usually, that is, at Alexandria. The Guard seems to have consisted both of cavalry — the Horse Guards (οἱ περὶ τὴν αὐλὴν ἱππεῖς), 700 at Raphia — and of infantry, both regulars ("Macedonians") and mercenaries. The term agēma, used in Alexander's army for a picked corps comprising both cavalry and infantry, seems in the Ptolemaic kingdom to have been applied to the regular infantry of the Guard alone. At Raphia its numbers are given as 3000 men. We hear, later on, of a special corps of native Egyptian soldiers amongst the king's household troops (the ἐπίλεκτοι μάχιμοι περὶ τὴν p169αὐλήν).87 They were armed, doubtless, like the native phalanx at Raphia, in the Macedonian, not in the old Egyptian, manner. But it seems likely, as Lesquier thinks, that the native guards did not exist till after Ptolemy IV. The soldiers who thronged the streets of Alexandria in the days of the first three Ptolemies88 would have been all Greeks and Macedonians. Poets contemporary with Ptolemy II make us see how the prospects of military service under the rich Greek king of Egypt drew young men of adventurous temper from all over the Greek world. Here is an imaginary conversation between two of them in Cos. One has been crossed in love, and says he will go and serve as a soldier overseas. And the other: "Would that things had gone to your mind, Aeschines! But if, in good earnest, you are thus set on going into exile, Ptolemy is the free man's best paymaster!" "And in other respects what kind of man?" "The free man's best paymaster! Indulgent, too, the Muses' darling, a true lover, the top of good company, knows his friends, and still better knows his enemies. A great giver to many, refuses nothing that he is asked which to give may beseem a king; but, Aeschines, we must not always be asking. Thus if you are minded to pin up the top corner of your cloak over the right shoulder, and if you have the heart to stand steady on both feet, and bide the brunt of a hardy targeteer, off instantly to Egypt!"89 Here again is some one talking to a young wife whose husband has gone to Alexandria: "From the day that Mandris left for Egypt it is ten months now, and he has not written you a line. He has forgotten you, you may be bound, and drunk of another spring of joy! Egypt! There, think, is the temple of the Goddess [Arsinoe]. Everything that is, or can be anywhere, is in Egypt — riches, gymnasiums, power, comfort, glory, shows, philosophers, gold, young men, the precinct of the Brother-and‑Sister Gods, the king, a liberal man, the Museum, wine, all good things heart can possibly desire — women, too, more in number than the stars, and as beautiful as the goddesses who went to Paris for judgment."90 p170We have seen how Ptolemy I created an artificial Macedonia in Egypt by settling Macedonian and Greek soldiers upon the land. Possibly this system of allotment-holders (klērūchoi) was not fully developed till the reign of Ptolemy III, after whose reign our data in papyri become more plentiful. Their name suggests that the klērūchoi established by the Athenian state on territories belonging to Athens overseas may have served to some extent as a model, yet the position of the Greek kleruchs in Egypt was more like that of the machimoi of Pharaonic times. At Raphia the regular troops (Graeco-Macedonian) were 28,700 strong. Lesquier calculates that, according to the scale of allotment which we find followed, this — supposing all the soldiers of the regular army to have been kleruchs — would suppose that some two million aruras of the soil of Egypt had been made over in the 3rd century to these foreign military settlers. Herodotus says that in the 5th century the machimoi numbered 410,000, the allotment to each man being of 12 aruras. This would make a total of 4,920,000aruras for the land then occupied by the machimoi. Since nothing like this amount of land can have been occupied by the reduced machimoi, when Greek rule was set up in Egypt, the amount supposed for the Graeco-Macedonian kleruchs does not seem excessive. The numbers of the native machimoi themselves in Ptolemaic Egypt was probably below the figure given for 5th‑century Egypt by Herodotus; but, besides, the normal holding of a machimos infantry private was now only 5, instead of 12, aruras. Some proportion of the new Graeco-Macedonian kleruchs may have been settled on lands which had been assigned to machimoi in former days, but they were no doubt in large part settled on land newly won by irrigation from the desert, especially in the Fayûm. Sometimes, as when Ptolemy III brought great numbers of captive soldiers from his campaigns in Asia, there must have been an allotment en masse in Egypt to new kleruchs; at other times the process of allotting bits of "Royal Land" here and there to this or the other soldier, or group of soldiers, went on as a regular part of everyday administration. The plot of land (the klēros) was assigned to the soldier for his lifetime, unless, for any failure of duty on his part, the king was pleased to confiscate it, that is, reabsorb it into the "Royal Land." One of the kleruch's chief duties was to maintain the plot in a proper state of cultivation. The plot p171was not the kleruch's to bequeath; at his death it fell again to the king, to be retained as "Royal Land," or allotted afresh. Beside the plot of cultivatable land the soldier was given his lodging (stathmos). In Egypt, cultivatable land is, as a rule, too precious to be built upon. Houses are built on higher land not reached by the inundation. Some house-holder in the neighbourhood of the kleros — in the village close by — was compelled to put half his house at the disposal of the kleruch. Naturally the system of quartering the Graeco-Macedonian soldiers in this way upon the population led to continual friction and trouble. Sometimes apparently a kleruch who already had a stathmos would try to get another one in another house. That was specially forbidden by a law of Ptolemy II.91 A kleruch was also forbidden by the same law to "draw money" from his stathmos, which probably means to let it. On the other hand, he was — certainly from the reign of Ptolemy III and perhaps from the beginning — allowed to let the kleros; it was to the interest of the state, that when a kleruch was called up for active service, there should be some one to go on cultivating his plot. The State had a double object: (1) to have a soldier, upon whom it could lay its hand whenever there was need for his military services; (2) to have this bit of Egyptian soil properly cultivated. It was important that when the kleruch died, a younger soldier should be ready to take his place. The most natural person to take his place was his son, if he had one. When, at the kleruch's death, the plot returned to the king, to be allotted again, the king would, in ordinary circumstances, allot it to the late kleruch's able-bodied son, if he had one. In this way, although the plot never became hereditary in strict law, it tended to become hereditary in practice — provided always that the dead kleruch left a son who could be of real use to the king as a soldier. At some date between the ninth year of Euergetes I and the fifth year of Philopator, the practice changed. At the death of a kleruch, if he left a son, the son was allowed to enter upon possession of the plot immediately, but, till he had had himself registered according to law, as the new kleruch, he was not allowed to appropriate the produce of the kleros; that went, during the interval, to the king. Plots, whose produce was "retained" in this way by the king, were described as katōchimoi klēroi (from katechein, "to retain"). A third p172change occurred, probably in the 1st century B.C. Inheritance was now not confined to the kleruch's issue; it was extended to his next of kin.92 The question what is meant by the terms epigonos ("after-born") and the epigonē is another stock problem of papyrology. It seems now to have been definitely established that the plural epigonoi is not synonymous with "the epigone." The epigonoi were definitely organized in corps of a military character under the command of the army authorities. Lesquier's suggestion seems to be generally accepted — that it was normally obligatory for the sons of a kleruch to serve for a period of years in one of these corps. It was to the king's interest that when a kleruch died, the son who took his place should have had military training, and the government might select out of the number of his sons (if he had more than one), not necessarily the eldest, but the son who, after training in the epigonoi, seemed the most efficient. One papyrus of the time of Ptolemy II shows us men already occupying allotments of 20 aruras, whilst they are still epigonoi.93 On the other hand, the people described as "of the epigone" do not appear to be attached to any military corps. Lesquier supposed that those who had served their time as epigonoi were afterwards described as "of the epigone." The idea, held at one time, that the son of a kleruch who might expect to succeed to his kleros was described as "of the epigone" till he had become a kleruch himself, is disproved by a papyrus94 in which some one "of the epigone" has already been allotted a kleros. It has now been made probable by Griffith95 that the essential point in the term epigone was the contrast of non-Egyptian with native. The term "of the epigone" is translated in Egyptian "born in Egypt amongst the descendants of stratiotai," i.e. the children and descendants of soldiers, settled in Egypt, not of Egyptian race — Greeks, Persians, Thracians, etc. When a man who had been "of the epigone" entered the army, he became himself a soldier, and ceased to be "of the epigone." As time went on, the kleruchs came to feel that the plot they cultivated and the stathmos they lived in were really theirs. As early as the reign of Ptolemy III we have wills p173of kleruchs in which the stathmos is bequeathed to their wives. Whether they had any legal right to bequeath what they held from the king is doubtful. But, by the end of the 2nd century, the kleruchs have acquired a limited right of testation. "If any of them die intestate, their allotments are to go to their next of kin," says a law of Ptolemy VII (118 B.C.).96 But no doubt the kleruch's choice of an heir was limited to some one who could take his place as a soldier; he might not, for instance, leave his kleros to a woman. The size of the kleros corresponded to the rank of the kleruch. The kleroi of officers were something above 100 aruras; we hear of one (a hipparch?) whose kleros was of 1306 aruras. In the 3rd century the normal kleros of a trooper in a numbered hipparchy was 100 aruras; of a troop in a racial hipparchy, 70; of a private in the regular infantry, 30; of a native Egyptian machimos, 5. We do not know the size of the kleroi in the case of soldiers of the Royal Guard. A man's rank might be described by the size of his holding — a "hundred-aruraman" (hekatontarūros), a "thirty-arura-man" (triakontarūros), etc. In the 2nd century there is a much greater variety in the size of kleroi. Troopers in the cavalry are now "hundred-arura-men" or "eighty-arura-men" (no more any "seventy-arura-men"). There are native troopers machimoi hippeis) who are "twenty-arura-men," and the kleros of native infantry-men has in some cases gone up from 5 to 7 aruras. But the apparent increase in the size of kleroi may be delusive. The terms "hundred-arura-man," etc., had come to denote a certain rank, and they went on being given to soldiers of that rank even when the real size of their allotments was something quite different. Under Ptolemy VI none of the "hundred-arura-men" in the village of Kerkeosiris in the Fayûm) have more than 50 aruras, none of the "eighty-arura-men" more than 40. But we find some machimoi now who are "thirty-arura-men," and that, whatever the actual size of their plots may have been, means a step towards assimilation, in rank, of native soldiers to Graeco-Macedonian soldiers — one indication amongst others of the rise of the native Egyptian element in power and importance towards the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty. From the end of the 3rd century there is a change of terminology which has to be explained. The term katoikoi p174("settlers") comes into use, instead of klērūchoi, to describe Graeco-Macedonian military allotment-holders. Probably this word connoted generally, in the Greek of the time, the settlement in some place of people not natives, and it was now used in Egypt of the Graeco-Macedonian allotment-holders, after the term "kleruchs" had come to include a large number of native Egyptians, who had been granted kleroi, either as soldiers or as policemen. Yet the use of the term "kleruchs" for Graeco-Macedonian allotment-holders went on to some extent, side by side with the term katoikoi, as late as the end of the 2nd century.97 Mercenary soldiers, employed by the king, received pay (opsōnion), paid in kind — corn, forage, etc. So also did young men during their service as epigonoi. But for kleruchs, the allotment and the stathmos were in lieu of pay — except, perhaps, when they were called up for active service.98 Their armour was furnished to all soldiers, regular and mercenary, out of the royal armouries; their horses to the cavalry-men from the royal studs (hippotropheia). But, in the case of kleruchs, both armour and horses, once given, seem to have become the property of the holder; kleruchs are found bequeathing their armour and their horses in their wills. Beside their land army, the Ptolemies maintained a war-navy; under Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III, when Egypt was generally the predominant sea-power in the Levant, this must have been very considerable. According to Callixenus99 the warships under Ptolemy II numbered 336. But we know next to nothing about its organization. The Chief Admiral had the title of nauarchos, but the same title was probably also borne by the commanders of divisions of the fleet.100 In the 2nd century the Governor (strategos) of Cyprus combines the office ofnauarchos with his governorship. One papyrus of 159 B.C. shows us men of the Greek islands serving as marines.101 The rowers and crews were recruited from p175native fellahîn, "Royal Cultivators," and the like. Probably the privilege conceded to the priests when they were relieved (according to the Rosetta Stone) from the σύλληψις τῶν εἰς τὴν ναυτείαν, was that fellahîn working on the temple lands should not be pressed for service in the fleet. Native Egyptians, as has been said, also probably served as marines on board the war-vessels, but Egyptians of the class of machimoi; these native marines may be meant by a term found in a papyrus of the reign of Ptolemy VI,102 nauklēro-machimoi; they would be "five-arura-men." A tax for the support of the navy called triērarchēma is mentioned.103 One arm used in the Hellenistic armies after Alexander was the Elephant Corps — an arm first known to the Greeks when Alexander invaded India. Seleucus, at the end of the 4th century, brought by land back from the East a large supply of Indian elephants, which were stabled at Apamea in the Orontes valley. To have brought elephants from India by sea would have an impossible undertaking even for kings so rich as the Ptolemies. But, as a substitute, Ptolemy II made it a regular business of his government to organize the capture of African elephants in the regions of the South — the lands of the "Cave-dwellers," Trogodytai, as the Greeks called the primitive black tribes of that part of the world. Expeditions (Satyrus and Eumedes are mentioned as two of the commanders under Ptolemy II) were sent out to the farther coasts of the Red Sea or to Somaliland, and the captured elephants were put on board specially constructed boats called elephantēgoi ("elephant-carriers"), and brought by sea to Berenice, "Berenice of the Trogodytes" (in the bay south of Ras Benas), whence they were driven across the desert hills to Coptos, or Ombi. Here they were taken over by an official called "the superintendent of the supply of elephants" (ὁ ἐπὶ τῇ χορηγίᾲ τῶν ἐλεφάντων).104 There was a temporary elephant depot in the Thebaïd: the chief stable was at Memphis.105 The Adulis inscription mentions the procuring of elephants from the South amongst the great deeds of Ptolemy III, and Agatharchides says that he showed special interest in this direction. Permanent military stations appear along the Red Sea coast — Ptolemais Thērōn ("of the Elephants"), fortified by Eumedes, near Suakin; Berenice Panchrysos, "All-golden" (Massowah); Arsinoe, near the p176Straits of Bab-el‑Mandeb; Berenice epi Dires, just outside the Straits — and, further, along the Somaliland coast, points called after commanders who directed the elephant-hunting in the interior, and often left memorials of themselves in the shape of steles and altars — "Pythangelus' Chase," "Lichas' Chase," Cape of Pitholaus, Leon's Watchtower, Pythangelus' Haven. The soldiers detached for the elephant-hunting were called kynēgoi, "Huntsmen," and we hear of the quartermaster of one such corps with the title "grammateus of the Huntsmen." The document (223 B.C.) which gives it to us is an order to the Royal Banker at Apollinopolis (Edfu) to hand over to the grammateus the pay of the men who are going with Pitholaus to the Somaliland coast — 4 silver obols a day, apparently quite good pay. Another document in this connexion is a letter (in Greek) from some Egyptians in Berenice to some fellow-countrymen in a station away to the south (224 B.C.). We learn from this that an elephant-carrier, having discharged its animal freight, normally returned laden with corn from Egypt for the maintenance of the garrisons in the outlying coast stations. In this case the elephant-carrier has sunk on its return journey, and the letter is written to keep up the spirits of the men in the southern station by assuring them that a new elephant-carrier has almost reached completion in Berenice and will be dispatched shortly with a fresh supply of corn.106 The African elephant is zoologically quite a different animal from the Indian, and recent attempts to train the African elephant, as the Indian is trained, have not led to great success. It accords with this that the experiment of the Ptolemies to use African elephants in war against the Indian elephants of the rival dynasty proved a failure. The African elephants would not stand against the Indian elephants in battle. After the battle of Raphia the elephant-hunting was not immediately given up, but it seems to have been gradually abandoned in the later days of the house of Ptolemy. The ancient authors note the inferiority of the African elephant to the Indian, but they wrongly state that it is inferior in size. This is not true. The normal height at the shoulder of the full-grown Indian male elephant is from 8 to 10 feet, whereas the African full-grown male often reaches 12 feet. It may be that the African elephants which ran away from the Indian p177elephants at Raphia were not full grown; that would account both for the idea getting abroad that the African elephant was a smaller animal, and for their timidity. One may conjecture that the difficulties of transport by sea made it preferable to bring immature animals. Yet in 217 there must have been numbers of African elephants in the royal stables which, even if immature when originally brought, had grown up to their full size in the interval. or :http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Africa/Egypt/_Texts/BEVHOP/5C*.html http://books.google.com.my/books?id=EPkfGkwgi9YC&pg=PT93&lpg=PT93&dq=nubian+mercenary+in+ptolemaic+army&source=bl&ots=Fbn1XRw2er&sig=H6p161fnz52S8ZPEQ7Xro_k2iK4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=z6r1UvHOJaSaiAf6k4GoAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=nubian%20mercenary%20in%20ptolemaic%20army&f=false

The sculpture from Taq-i Bustan was beyond time frame. Something fishy about the banner man who carries a flag with a portrait of a woman. IMHO, Persian infantry from Restitutor Orbis is far better than Gripping Beast miniatures Sassanid infantry. Why? because early Sassanid infantry have no real uniform at all. However, Persian Archers from Gripping Beast was the best model for 0 AD Sassanid archer.

As a fan of 0 AD, i wish to propose a petition for the sake of 0 AD's future. My petition was simple, remove Mercenary Nubian Archer and replace it with Cretan Archer plus turn Mercenary Nubian Archer into public mercenary where all player could recruit from neutral mercenary recruitment facility. Thank you.

Chariot weapons from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX-Y7ETWUA8 Egyptian armor from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFxkYmqIX1w

Units (Pre-Islamic and Islamic) 1. Infantry Rajil (Infantry) 2. Missiles Ramiy (archer) 3. Cavalry Fursan (cavalry) Bedouin Raider (camelry) 4. Champion Unit Mubarizun (Elite Infantry, divided by three classes sword, bow and javelin) Ansar Cavalry 5. Client Troops Mawali Infantry (Spearman) Al-Asawira (mounted Archer) 6. Siege Falakan-e Majaniq (Persian Mangonel) Umayyad Period 1. Infantry Shurtah (Urban Prefect) Rammaha (Spearman) 2. Missile Ramiy (Archer) 2. Cavalry Muqatila Bedouin Raider (Camelry) 3. Champion unit Al-Haras Al-Khass Al-Haras Al-Qasr 4. Client Troops Mawali Infantry (Spearman) Al-Asawira (Mounted Archer) Berber Auxiliary (Skirmisher) 5. Navy Byzantine Dromon

Rome_and_Persia_in_Late_Antiquity__Neighbours_and_Rivals.pdf chronicle of theophanes the confessor (t).pdf http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16764/16764-h/16764-h.htm Theophylact Simocatta and the Persians.pdf

Saxons from HV: Total War http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?562830-Preview-Kingdom-of-England

Thank you.

Here's a website that may help: http://www.teheran.ir/spip.php?article1705 The article is written in French, so translation is needed.

Well, the mod was still in development phase so if there's something wrong then it is not my fault. But i have something for the team: Sasanian Vocab Syntx -IA-2.pdf Horse Armor Spear Shield Armor Battle Axe http://www.academia.edu/5415622/Moshtagh_Khorasani_Manouchehr_2007_._The_Weapons_of_Choice_The_Art_and_Design_of_Sword_Making_and_Carrying_During_the_Reign_of_the_Sassanian_Zoroastrian_Rulers_is_Expounded._Parsiana_October_07_pp._28-29 http://www.scribd.com/doc/24275564/Persian-Sassanian-Armies Sassanid Long sword (Replica)

Byzantine Dromon Zarrin Nizagan

Units 1.Infantry Payg (Infantry) Daylami Warrior (Arteshtar-i Daylamig) Dismounted Cavalry (Arteshtar-iPayahdag) Kurdish Tribesmen Archer (Kamandar-e Eransahr) Omani Marine (Laskar-e Mazun) 2. Cavalry Aswaran-e Dihqanan (Dihqan cavalry) Aswaran-e Azadan (Azadan cavalry) PS: become Grivpanvar (Clibanarii) when promoted. Lakhmid cavalry 3. Champion unit Aswaran-e Zhayedan (Sassanid Household Cavalry) Pushtighbane Daylamig (Daylami Guards) Zarrin Nizagan (Golden Spearman) Kamandar-e Zhayedan (Sassanid Household Archers) War Elephant or Indian Corps 4. Siege Onager (Falakan-e Majaniq) Scorpion Battering Ram Siege Tower Ballista 5. Navy Omani Dhow Roman/Byzantine Dromon 6. Heroes Kawad I Kosrow I Bahrām VI Čōbīn Kosrow II Šahrwarāz Yazdgird III

As the Mod covers only 500 - 1000 in Part 1, i will begin from the reign of Kawad I: Reign of Kosrow I/Xusro i Kosrow Reforms Babak (The King's Agent) Bahrām VI Čōbīn Kosrow II Kawad II Ardašīr III Šahrwarāz Yazdgird III