Civ: Sasanians

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Sasanian_horse_armor.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/1988347/Fighting_the_Other_Part_III_Military_and_Society_in_Sasanian_Iran_Uncorrected_Proof_

https://www.academia.edu/4385959/Late_Sasanian_army

https://www.academia.edu/35763462/Kaveh_Farrokh_Gholamreza_Karamian_Katarzyna_Maksymiuk_A_Synopsis_of_Sasanian_Military_Organization_and_Combat_Units_Siedlce_Tehran_2018

Edited May 29 by d34d svn

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Sasanid army (From the articles of Encyclopedia Iranica): Army I. Pre-Islamic Iran)

The Sasanian period. The Iranian society under the Sasanians was divided—allegedly by Ardašīr I—into four groups: priests, warriors (artēštār), state officials, and artisans and peasants. The second category embraced princes, lords, and landed aristocracy (Christensen, Iran Sass., p. 98), and one of the three great fires of the empire, Ādur Gušnasp at Šīz (Taḵt-e Solaymān in Azerbaijan) belonged to them (ibid., pp. 166f.). With a clear military plan aimed at the revival of the Persian empire (Dio Cassius 80.4.2; Herodian 6.2.2), Ardašīr I formed a standing army which was under his personal command and its officers were separate from satraps and local princes and nobility (Agathangelos [Greek version] 1.8). Ardašīr had started as the military commander of Dārābgerd (Ṭabarī, tr. Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 5), and was knowledgeable in older and contemporary military history, from which he benefited, as history shows, substantially. For he restored Achaemenid military organizations, retained Parthian cavalry, and employed Roman-style armor and siege-engines, thereby creating a standing army (Mid. Pers. spāh) which served his successors for over four centuries, and defended Iran against Central Asiatic nomads and Roman armies (Christensen, op. cit., p. 207).

The backbone of the spāh was its heavy cavalry “in which all the nobles and men of rank” underwent “hard service” (Ammianus Marcellinus 23.6.83) and became professional soldiers “through military training and discipline, through constant exercise in warfare and military manoeuvers” (ibid.). From the third century the Romans also formed units of heavy cavalry of the Oriental type (Rundgren, Orientalia Suecana 6, 1957, pp. 35ff.); they called such horsemen clibanarii “mail-clad [riders]” (e.g. Ammianus Marcellinus 16.10.8), a term thought to have derived from an Iranian *grīwbānar < *grīwbānwar < *grīva-pāna-bara “neck-guard wearer” (Rundgren, op. cit., pp. 48f., evidently unaware that the Pahlavi grīwbān “neck-guard” is attested inVendidad 14.9: A.V. W. Jackson, “Herodotus VII. 61, or the Arms of the Ancient Persians Illustrated from Iranian Sources,” in Classical Studies in Honour of Henry Drisler, New York, 1894, pp. 95ff., esp. p. 118). The heavy cavalry of Šāpūr II is described by an eye-witness historian as follows: “all the companies were clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff joints conformed with those of their limbs; and the forms of human faces were so skillfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire body was covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tip of their nose they were able to get a little breath. Of these some who were armed with pikes, stood so motionless that you would have thought them held fast by clamps of bronze” (Ammianus Marcellinus 25.1. 12-13, cf. 24.6.8). The described horsemen are represented by the seventh-century knight depicting Ḵosrow Parvēz on his steed Šabdīz on a rock relief at Ṭāq-e Bostān in Kermānšāh (E. Herzfeld, AMI 9/1938, pp. 91ff.). Since the Sasanian horseman lacked the stirrup (A. D. H. Bivar, “The Stirrup and its origins,” Oriental Art, N.S. 1, 1965, pp. 61-65), he used a war saddle which, like the medieval type, had a cantle at the back and two guard clamps curving across the top of the rider’s thighs enabling him thereby to stay in the saddle especially during violent contact in battle (E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis III, Chicago, 1970, p. 135). The inventory of weapons ascribed to Sasanian horsemen at the time of Ḵosrow Anōšīravān (Ṭabarī, I, p. 964 [tr. Nöldeke, pp. 248f.]; Baḷʿami, Tārīḵ, p. 1048; Ferdowsī, Šāh-nāma VIII, p. 63), resembles the twelve items of war mentioned in Vendidad 14.9 (Jackson, loc. cit.), thus showing that this part of the text had been revised in the later Sasanian period. More interestingly, the most important Byzantine treatise on the art of war, the Strategicon, also written at this period, requires the same equipments from a heavily-armed horseman (Bivar in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 26, 1972, pp. 287-88). This was due to the gradual orientalization of the Roman army to the extent that in the sixth century “the military usages of the Romans and the Persians become more and more assimilated, so that the armies of Justinian and Khosrow are already very much like each other;” and, indeed, the military literatures of the two sides show strong affinities and interrelations (C. A. Inostrantsev, “Sasanian Military Theory,” tr. L. Bogdanov in Journal of the Cama Oriental Institute 7, 1926, pp. 7ff. esp. p. 23). According to the Iranian sources mentioned above, the martial equipments of a heavily-armed Sasanian horseman were as follows: helmet, hauberk (Pahlavi grīwbān), breastplate, mail, gauntlet (Pahlavi abdast), girdle, thigh-guards (Pahlavi rān-ban), lance, sword, battle-axe, mace, bowcase with two bows and two bowstrings, quiver with 30 arrows, two extra bowstrings, spear, and horse armor (zēn-abzār); to these some have added a lasso (kamand), or a sling with slingstones (Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, pp. 248f.; Jackson, op. cit., pp. 108ff.). The elite corps of the cavalry was called “the Immortals,” evidently numbering—like their Achaemenid namesakes—10,000 men (Christensen, Iran Sass., p. 208 with references). On one occasion (under Bahrām V) the force attacked a Roman army but outnumbered, it stood firm and was cut down to a man (Socrates Scholasticus 7.20). Another elite cavalry group was the Armenian one, whom the Persians accorded particular honor (Christensen, op. cit., p. 210). In due course the importance of the heavy cavalry increased and the distinguished horseman assumed the meaning of “knight” as in European chivalry; if not of royal blood, he ranked next to the members of the ruling families and was among the king’s boon companions (ibid., pp. 112, 368-69; J. M. Unvala, The Pahlavi Text “King Ḫusrav and his Boy,” Paris, 1921).

The Sasanians did not form light-armed cavalry but extensively employed—as allies or mercenaries—troops from warlike tribes who fought under their own chiefs. “The Sagestani were the bravest of all” (Ammianus Marcellinus 19.2.3); the Gelani, Albani and the Hephthalites, the Kushans and the Khazars were the main suppliers of light-armed cavalry. The skill of the Dailamites in the use of sword and dagger made them valuable troopers in close combat (Agathias 3.17), while Arabs were efficient in desert warfare (Christensen, op. cit., pp. 209, 275).

The infantry (paygān) consisted of the archers and ordinary footmen. The former were protected “by an oblong curved shield, covered with wickerwork and rawhide” (Ammianus Marcellinus 24.6.8). Advancing in close order, they showered the enemy with storms of arrows. The ordinary footmen were recruited from peasants and received no pay (ibid., 23.6.83), serving mainly as pages to the mounted warriors; they also attacked walls, excavated mines and looked after the baggage train, their weapons being a spear and a shield (ibid., 23.6.83; Procopius 1.14.24, 52; Christensen, op. cit., p. 209). The cavalry was better supported by war elephants “looking like walking towers” (Ammianus Marcellinus 25.1.14; sec also E. Herzfeld AMI 3, 1931, pp. 26ff.), which could cause disorder and damage in enemy ranks in open and level fields. War chariots were not used by the Sasanians (contra Alexander Severus in Lampridius, Vita Alex. Sev. 56). Unlike the Parthians, however, the Persians organized an efficient siege machine for reducing enemy forts and walled towns. They learned this system of defense from the Romans but soon came to match them not only in the use of offensive siege engines—such as scorpions, balistae, battering rams, and moving towers—but also in the methods of defending their own fortifications against such devices by catapults, by throwing stones or pouring boiling liquid on the attackers or hurling fire brands and blazing missiles (Ammianus Marcellinus 19.5f., 20.6-7, 11).

The organization of the Sasanian army is not quite clear, and it is not even certain that a decimal scale prevailed, although such titles as hazārmard (Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 284 n. 2) might indicate such a system. Yet the proverbial strength of an army was 12,000 men (Ferdowsī, Šāh-nāma VIII, p. 343). The total strength of the registered warriors in 578 was 70,000 (Ṭabarī, tr. Nöldeke, p. 271). The army was divided, as in the Parthian times, into several gunds, each consisting of a number of drafšs (units with particular banners), each made up of some wašts (Christensen, op. cit., p. 210). The imperial banner was the Drafš-e Kāvīān, a talismanic emblem accompanying the Great King or the commander-in-chief of the army who was stationed in the center of his forces and managed the affairs of the combat from the elevation of a throne (A. Christensen, Smeden Kāväh, tr. Unvala, pp. 28f.). At least from the time of Ḵosrow Anōšīravān a seven-grade hierarchical system seems to have been favored in the organization of the army (M. Grignaschi, “Quelques spécimens de la litterature sassanide conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Istanbul,” JA, 1966, pp. 1ff. esp. pp. 24, 42 n. 76). The highest military title was argbed which was a prerogative of the Sasanian family (Nöldeke, op. cit., p. 5 n. 3). Until Ḵosrow Anōšīravān’s military reforms, the whole of the Persian army was under a supreme commander, Ērān-spāhbed, who acted as the minister of defense, empowered to conduct peace negotiations; he usually came from one of the great noble families and was counted as a counselor of the Great King (Christensen, Iran Sass., pp. 130f.). Along with the revival of “heroic” names in the middle of the Sasanian period, an anachronistic title, artēštārān sālār (q.v., Greek rendering adrastadaran salanes: Procopius 1.6. 18) was coined to designate a generalissimo with extraordinary authority, but this was soon abandoned when Anōšīravān abolished the office of Ērān-spāhbed and replaced it with those of the four marshals (spāhbed) of the empire, each of whom was the military authority in one quarter of the realm (Christensen, op. cit., pp. 131, 370). Other senior officials connected with the army were: Ērān-ambāragbed “minister of the magazines of empire,” responsible for the arms and armaments of warriors (ibid., pp. 107-108); the marzbāns “margraves”—rulers of important border provinces (ibid., pp. 102, 108, 371ff.; 518ff.); kanārang—evidently a hereditary title of the ruler of Ṭūs (ibid., pp. 108, 351, 507); gund-sālār “general” (ibid., p. 210); paygān-sālār “commander of the infantry” (ibid.); and puštigbān-sālār “commander of the royal guard” (ibid.).

A good deal of what is known of the Sasanian army dates from the sixth and seventh centuries when, as the results of Anōšīravān’s reforms, four main corps were established; soldiers were enrolled as state officials receiving pay and subsidies as well as arms and horses; and many vulnerable border areas were garrisoned by resettled warlike tribes (ibid., pp. 367ff.). The sources are particularly rich in accounts of the Sasanian art of warfare because there existed a substantial military literature, traces of which are found in the Šāh-nāma, Dēnkard 8.26—an abstract of a chapter of the Sasanian Avesta entitled Artēštārestān “warrior code”—and in the extracts from the Āʾīn-nāma which Ebn Qotayba has preserved in his ʿOyūn al-aḵbār and Inostrantsev has explained in detail (in Journal of the Cama Oriental Institute 7, 1926, pp. 7-52; see also Christensen, op. cit., pp. 215f.). The Artēštārestān was a complete manual for the military: it described in detail the regulations on recruitments, arms and armor, horses and their equipments, trainings, ranks, and pay of the soldiers and provisions for them, gathering military intelligence and taking precaution against surprise attack, qualifications of commanders and their duties in arraying the lines, preserving the lives of their men, safeguarding Iran, rewarding the brave and treating the vanquished (Sanjana’s tr. in Dēnkard, vol. XVI, Bombay, 1917, pp. 6ff.). The Āʾīn-nāma furnished valuable instructions on tactics, strategy and logistics. It enjoined, for instance, that the cavalry should be placed in front, left-handed archers capable of shooting to both sides be positioned on the left wing, which was to remain defensive and be used as support in case of enemy advance, the center be stationed in an elevated place so that its two main parts (i.e., the chief line of cavalry, and the lesser line of infantry behind them) could resist enemy charges more efficiently, and that the men should be so lined up as to have the sun and wind to their back (Inostrantsev, op. cit., pp. 13ff.).

Battles were usually decided by the shock cavalry of the front line charging the opposite ranks with heavy lances while archers gave support by discharging storms of arrows. The center, where the commander-in-chief took his position on a throne under the Drafš-e Kāvīān, was defended by the strongest units. Since the carrying of the shield on the left made a soldier inefficient in using his weapons leftwards, the right was considered the line of attack, each side trying to outflank the enemy from that direction, i.e., at the respective opponent’s left; hence, the left wing was made stronger but assigned a defensive role (ibid., pp. 16ff.; Bivar, op. cit., pp. 289f.). The chief weakness of the Persian army was its lack of endurance in close combat (Ammianus Marcellinus 25.1.18). Another fault was the Persian’s too great a reliance on the presence of their leader: the moment the commander fell or fled his men gave way regardless of the course of action.

During the Sasanian period the ancient tradition of single combat (mard o-mard) developed to a firm code (Christensen, op. cit., p. 216). In 421 Bahrām V opposed a Roman army but accepted the war as lost when his champion in a single contest was slain by a Goth from the Roman side (Johannes Malalas [in B. G. Niebuhr, ed., Hist. Byzant. Scriptores, Bonn, 1831], p. 14a). Such duels are represented on several Sasanian rock-reliefs at Naqš-e Rostam (Schmidt, Persepolis III, pp. 130ff.), and on a famous cameo in Paris depicting Šāpūr I capturing Valerian (R. Ghirshman, Iran 249 B.C.-A.D. 657: The Parthian and Sassanian Dynasties, London, 1962, fig. 195).

Sasanian kings were conscious of their role as military leaders: many took part in battle, and some were killed; the Picture Book of Sasanian Kings showed them as warriors with lance or sword (Ḥamza, pp. 50-54; Moǰmal, pp. 33ff.). Some are credited with writing manuals on archery (Bivar, op. cit., p. 284), and they are known to have kept accounts of their campaigns (e.g., Šāpūr’s inscription on the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt, and cf. Ebrāhīm b. Moḥammad Bayhaqī, al-Moḥāsen wa’l-mosāwī, ed. F. Schwally, Giessen, 1902, p. 481: “When Ḵosrow Parvēz concluded his wars with Bahrām-e Čūbīna and consolidated his rule over the empire, he ordered his secretary to write down an account of those wars and related events in full, from the beginning to the end”).

While heavy cavalry proved efficient against Roman armies, it was too slow and regimentalized to act with full force against agile and unpredictable light-armed cavalry and rapid foot archers; the Persians who in the early seventh century conquered Egypt and Asia Minor lost decisive battles a generation later when nimble, lightly armed Arabs accustomed to skirmishes and desert warfare attacked them. Hired light-armed Arab or East Iranian mercenaries could have served them much better.

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Late_Sasanian_army.pdf

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A minor revision on Sasanian mercenaries: Sogdians should be regional mercenaries, not dedicated mercenaries.

Aswaran-i Sakasahr: Elite light cavalry/horse archer (E4)

 

 

 

21 KHONSARINEJAD.pdf

Kaveh_Farrokh_Gholamreza_Karamian_Katarz.pdf

Edited June 2 by d34d svn

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ASWĀR (Middle Persian) “horseman,” Old Persian asabāra, Parthian (Nisa) ʾsbry, Persian savār and sovār. In Old Persian asabāra designated the horseman as opposed to the foot-soldier. Thus Darius says (DNb 44-45, Kent, Old Persian, pp. 139-40) “(as) a spearman I am a good spearman both on foot (pastiš) and on horseback (asabāra).” The same concept is expressed by “man and horse” (asp ud mard, heterographically Mid. Pers. GBRA W SWSYA, Parth. GBRYN W SWSYN) in the Sasanian inscriptions (Kirdēr at Sar Mašhad and on the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt and Narseh at Paikuli), where the word aswār is not found. In the Zoroastrian Pahlavi books aswār also designates only the “horseman,” and it is not till in the later, Arabic sources that the term is said to have a more specialized meaning, cf. Ḵᵛārazmī, Mafāteḥ al-ʿolūm (ed. van Vloten, Leiden, 1895, p. 115): “al-asāwera, plural of al-oswār, i.e., horseman, because the Iranians give the name oswār only to a brave, heroic, famous man.” The terms aswārān or aswāragān (Christensen, Iran Sass., p. 265 n. 4) do not appear to be attested in the sense of the arabicized asāwīrāt “knights” (see Asāwera) in the Sasanian Middle Persian literature, where the warrior class is the artēštār(ān) (q.v.). Note that the reading andarzbed ī aswāragān in the Kār-nāmag, proposed by T. Nöldeke in his translation (Bezzenbergers Beiträge 4, 1878, p. 62 n. 3; cf. J. Darmesteter, Le Zend Avesta I, p. 31 n. 17; M. Boyce, The Letter of Tansar, Rome, 1968, p. 41 with n. 4 comparing Ar. moʾaddeb al-asāwera), is an emendation of the manuscript’s andarzbed ī wāspuhragān (see H. S. Nyberg, A Manual of Pahlavi, Wiesbaden, I, 1964, p. 11 l. 19 and II, 1974, p. 94).

 

In modern times the Borhān-e qāṭeʿ (ed. Moʿīn, I, p. 135) reports that the term asvār is used in the language of Gīlān to designate a group of soldiers of the lowest rank who carry axes and wooden clubs with which they strike each other on the heads. This kind of battle they call asvārī.

Source: https://iranicaonline.org/articles/aswar-middle-persian-horseman

Edited June 3 by d34d svn

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ARABIA

ii. The Sasanians and Arabia

Within a few years after the commencement of Ardašir I’s (r. ca. 224-242) program of conquest, the Sasanians undertook military engagements in both northeastern Arabia and Oman.  In the late Sasanian period, they conquered Yemen Aden  (see ABNĀʾ).  Generally, however, the Sasanians seem to have exercised political control in Arabia via their Arab clients.

According to Ṭabari and Ebn al-Aṯir, who copied him, Ardašir campaigned around 240 in Bahrain (Ṭabari, I/2, p. 820; tr., p. 15; Ebn al-Aṯir, I, p. 384); in Oman, Bahrain, and Yamāma (Dinavari, p. 45; tr., p. 69); or “in the country which lies between” Oman, Bahrain, Yamāma, and Hajar (Nehāyat al-erab, fol. 92b, apud Widengren).  His adversary was a king in Bahrain named Sanaṭroq (Ṭabari, Dinavari, Nehāyat al-erab,) and a king in Oman named ʿAmr b. Wāqed Ḥemyari (Nehāyat al-erab, fol. 92b, apud Widengren). The Nehāyat al-erab elaborates further, suggesting that unnamed Arab kings wrote to Asʿad b. ʿAmr, king of Yemen, informing him of Ardašir’s attack, and that Asʿad marched with an army of 100,000 including “inhabitants of Tahāma, and those kings who were there among the descendants of Nezār b. Maʿadd and Fehr b. Mālek and Qalammas b. ʿĀmer b. Żāreb” (tr. Piacentini, 1985, p. 63).  After killing the kings of Bahrain and Oman in battle, Ardašir is said to have sent a message to Asʿad b. ʿAmr with an offer of peace and confirmation of his continued rule in Yemen; a promise was extended also to the kings of the Hejaz (northwestern Arabia) and Tahāma (coastal southwestern Arabia).  After this, Ardašir is said to have returned to Eṣṭaḵr (Nehāyat al-erab, fol. 92b, apud Widengren).

The historicity of either a very pointed campaign by Ardašir against Bahrain (understood as the northeast Arabian mainland, rather than the island of the same name; see Wüstenfeld, pp. 175-97) or a more extensive one that took in the entire region between Oman and the modern Hofuf oasis (Hajar) has been discussed by scholars since 1879, when Theodor Nöldeke published his translation of that part of Ṭabari which deals with the history of the Sasanians and the Arabs.  Whereas some scholars (e.g., Altheim and Stiehl; Widengren, p. 755) have dismissed it as a confusion with Ardašir’s conquest of Hatra in northern Iraq (based on the graphic similarity between Hatra in Syriac and Ḥaṭṭā, the name of the coastal strip in northeastern Arabia), others (e.g., Piacentini, 1984; idem, 1985, pp. 64 ff.; Potts, 1985, p. 89; Daryaee, in Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr, p. 54) have accepted the conquest of eastern Arabia and Oman as plausible, even if the part of the story recounted in the Nehāyat al-erab about Nezār b. Maʿadd, Fehr b. Mālek, and Qalammas b. ʿĀmer embodies “some legendary embellishments and an intentionally epic tone” (Piacentini, 1985, p. 66).

One wonders what motivation Ardašir could possibly have had for launching an attack on eastern Arabia.  The answer perhaps lies in the often discussed and equally contentious Parthian or Characene presence (Potts, 1985, p. 89; idem, 1988; idem, 1997) in eastern Arabia, and possibly in the alleged involvement of Arabs (tāzigān) and people from Mazun (mazunigān, i.e., Omanis) “who [inhabit] on the [Arabian] shore of the [Persian] Gulf” in the army of Haftānboḵt (q.v.), who was defeated by Ardašir in coastal Fars, according to the Kār-nāmak ī Arsašīr ī Pābagān (sec. 7.12; Asha, p. 33; Bosworth notes that the name “is probably a misrendering of an Achaemenid term for an administrative district, denoting a component part of a province”; see Ṭabari, tr., p. 10, n. 32).  In any case, one indication that an Arabian campaign may have taken place is provided by the eighth-century Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr (sec. 52), according to which Ardašir “appointed Ōšag of Hagar as margrave (over the) Dō-sar and Bor-gil by the wall of the Arabs” (Daryaee, in Šahrestānīhā, p. 20).  Moreover, Ṭabari says that, in Bahrain, Ardašir founded a new city called Fasā (?) Ardašīr or “the city of al-Ḵaṭṭ” (cf. Syriac Ḥaṭṭā, noted above; Ṭabari, p. 820; tr, p. 16, n. 64; Nöldeke, 1879, p. 20; Frye, 1983, p. 167 and note 3, suggesting instead Pērōz Ardašir, i.e., “victorious [is] Ardašir”).

According to Yāqut (V, p. 122, apud Lammens), Ardašir established the Azd, an important tribal group in Oman, at Šehr on the Hadramawt coast (Lammens, p. 398; Potts, 2008, p. 198).  Indirect confirmation of Sasanian control over Mazun in the reign of Ardašir is provided by Šāpūr I’s inscription at Kaʿba-ye Zardošt at Naqš-e Rostam near Persepolis, which includes it as one of his provinces (sec. 3.17).  The likelihood that it was inherited by Šāpūr from a prior conquest of his father’s is strong, considering the fact that Šāpur himself is never said to have campaigned there (Potts, 2008, p. 200).

According to the Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr (sec. 25), Ḥira, near Kufa, was established by Šāpūr I, and this has been taken by some scholars as an indication that the Lakhmid dynasty there, who later functioned as Sasanian vassals charged with policing the Arab population of northern Arabia, was established at this time (e.g., Rothstein p. 44; Retsö, p. 481).  Thereafter the Laḵmids functioned in much the same fashion as the Ghassanids did in northwestern Arabia for the Byzantine state (Nöldeke, 1888; Shahid, pp. 3-46).

A Sasanian presence on the borders of Hadramawt may have been the motivation behind an embassy sent by Šammar Yuharʿiš, king of Sabaʾ, Ḏu Raydan, Hadramawt, and Yamnat, to Ctesiphon in the early 4th century, perhaps on the occasion of the birth of Šāpūr II (Potts, 2008, p. 202).  If so, this diplomatic gesture was a success, for when Šāpūr II launched a vicious assault on northern Arabia in 325, he is said by Ṯaʿālebi not to have advanced as far as Yemen “because the kings of this country were his clients” (Widengren, p. 731).  According to Ṭabari, the impetus for the campaign was a series of attacks by Arabs from northeastern Arabia “who looked on Fars as their pastureland” (Ṭabari, I/2, pp. 838-39; tr., pp. 54-55; Nöldeke, 1879, p. 53). These prompted Šāpūr II to cross the Persian Gulf to Ḥaṭṭ; advance through Bahrain and Hajar, slaughtering many tribes (Tamim, Bakr b. Wāʾel, ʿAbd-al-Qays) as he went; destroy wells in Yamāma; and advance as far as Medina.  Šāpūr deported some Tamim tribesmen to Kerman and Ahvaz (Nöldeke, 1879, p. 233), piercing their shoulder blades and binding them, for which, according to several Arab writers, he was termed Ḏo’l-aktāf, “lord of the shoulders” (Ḥamza, pp. 51-52; tr. pp. 49-50; Ḵᵛārazmi, pp. 102-3; tr., p. 102; Nöldeke, 1879, p. 57, n. 2; Christensen, p. 235, n.2).

Aside from interactions with their Lakhmid vassals, there is subsequently little evidence of direct Sasanian involvement in Arabia until the reign of Ḵosrow I Anušervān (r. 531-79).  According to Ṭabari, during the reign of Justin II (r. 565-78), Sayf b. Ḏi Yazan Ḥemyari sought Byzantine assistance in expelling Ethiopian forces from Yemen (cf. the discussion in Rubin, pp. 192 ff.), but when he was rebuffed, he turned instead to the Lakhmid ruler Noʿmān b. Monḏer, Ḵosrow’s governor of Ḥira, and eventually to Ḵosrow.  One account has it that an expeditionary force of 800 prisoners awaiting execution were sent out under a commander named Vahrez (a title: cf. Procopius, De Bello Persico 1.12.10; Dinavari, p. 65, tr. p. 92: Vahrez, son of Kāmjār; his real name may have been something like Ḵozrad Narsis, according to Omani oral tradition recorded by Miles, pp. 423-24; see also Justi, p. 340; Nöldeke, 1879, p. 223, n. 2) to conquer Yemen (Ṭabari, I/2, pp. 945-49; tr., pp. 235-41 and n. 591; Balʿami, pp. 1021-34; Dinavari, pp. 65-66; tr., pp. 91-93; Maqdesi, III, pp. 188-94; tr., III, pp. 532-36; Nöldeke, 1879, pp. 220 ff.).  Also, earlier in his account, Ṭabari says that Ḵosrow sent an army of Daylamites, who “killed the Abyssinian Masruq in Yemen and remained there” (I/2, p. 899, tr., p. 160).  An entirely different account is given by Theophanes of Byzantium, according to whom the Sasanian campaign was led by a general named Miranes (i.e., Mehrān, see Müller, p. 271; cf. Gignoux et al., pp. 99-100) against an Ethiopian king named Sanatourkes (Rubin, p. 190; there is evident confusion here with the Sanaṭroq of Bahrain defeated by Ardašir).  Several contradictory sources date the death of Masruq to the 30th year of the Prophet Moḥammad (i.e., 582, thus Ḥamza, p. 136) or the 45th year of Kosrow's life, i.e., 575-76 (Masʿudi, sec. 1019; Ḥāji Ḵalifa, apud Fell, p. 46,). The yaum al-mošaqqar, which describes the ambush by Arab tribes of a caravan sent by Vahrez to Kosrow I, may reflect the tradition related by Ṭabari of the substantial booty forwarded to the Sasanian king that had been seized when the army entered Ṣanʿā (Potts, 2008, p. 207).  Ṭabari also recounts the return of Vahrez to Ḵosrow, preceded by the installation of a Sasanian client, one Sayf b. Ḏi Yazan, charged with collecting taxes, “which he was to send to Kisrā annually as fixed sums” (I/2, pp. 949-50, tr. pp. 241-42).

In another version of the story, Sayf was assassinated, and the Abyssinians returned to power, prompting Vahrez to lead a second expedition and re-conquer Yemen, where he remained as viceroy, a position held by his son Marzbān, grandson and great-grandson, until one Bāḏān was appointed governor.  Bāḏān is said to have ruled until the coming of Islam (Ṭabari, I/2, pp. 957-58; tr., pp. 251-52; Nöldeke, 1879, pp. 236-37).  These accounts, however, appear to conflate expeditions sent out by Ḵosrow I (the original one) and Ḵosrow II Parvēz (the later re-conquest).  Probably related to the earlier campaign was the establishment of the fort at Rostāq in the interior of Oman (cf. rōstāg, the Mid. Pers. term for an administrative division), known as Borj Kesrā b. Šerwan, and the tradition, relayed in the Omani history known as the Ḵašf al-ḡomma, that “The Persian monarchs used to send persons who had incurred their displeasure or whom they feared to their army in ‘Omán” (Ross, p. 118).

Like the Lakhmids in the north, the Jolandā rulers of Oman functioned as Sasanian vassals (Wilkinson, 1975).  Despite four centuries of interaction, however, relatively little archeological evidence of the Sasanian presence has been found anywhere in eastern Arabia (coins: Potts and Cribb; Potts, 2010; metalwork: Potts, 1993; weaponry: Potts, 1997b; ceramics: Kennet).  A few examples of Sasanian glass with cut and polished decoration have been found in Yemen (Whitehouse, p. 11, citing examples illustrated in Roux, p. 209), and a carved column capital from the Hadramawt has been compared with Sasanian architectural decoration (Keall, 1998).

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/arabia-ii-sasanians-and-arabia

Edited June 5 by d34d svn

[d34d svn]

Sasanian units that exist in the time frame:

Basic

Persian spearman (with the option of using Roman arms)

Persian sword auxiliary (sword wielding infantry, expensive)

Dismounted Azadan Cavalry (heavy infantry armed with two-handed Persian sword)

Persian archer

Azadan Cavalry (armored lancer)

Mercenaries

Saka Cavalry (mercenary cavalry archer)

Daylami mercenaries (cheap, axe wielding mercenaries)

Daylami mercenaries (cheap, spear wielding mercenaries)

Daylami mercenaries (cheap, javelin wielding mercenaries)

Elite

Zhayedan (Immortals, armored lancer)

Royal archer (Household archer of House Sasan)

War elephants

Navy

Arabian Dhow/Omani Dhow

Roman Trireme (requires Espionage)

Siege

Siege tower

Battering Ram

Onager

Scorpiones

 

 

 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 hours ago, d34d svn said:

Roman Trireme (requires Espionage)

I like this a lot.

3 hours ago, d34d svn said:

Siege

Siege tower

Battering Ram

Onager

Scorpiones

Perhaps a fire or poisonous siege unit? (Thinking of the siege of Dura Europas here)

[d34d svn]

Sappers tech, siege ladder and arson tech attack for Persian spearman/ Persian heavy spearman sword auxiliary and Dismounted Azadan Cavalry. Meanwhile chemical attack was given to Dismounted Azadan Cavalry as a mean to clear out enemy garrison in buildings.

The chemical attack on Dura Europos wall section was launched by a Persian infantry (possibly a Sasanian trooper/Azadan).

The reconstruction of the Persian trooper perished in the siege mine suggest he could be a dismounted cavalryman.

https://www.livescience.com/13113-ancient-chemical-warfare-romans-persians.html

Consider the Dismounted Azadan Cavalry's chemical attack ability as the union of a flash bang grenade and a terrorist from Command and Conquer: Generals/Zero Hour. As the unit use the ability on the damaged and garrisoned building, he and the garrisoned enemies dies instantaneously.

 

Edited June 12 by d34d svn

[d34d svn]

New option for Dismounted Azadan Cavalry:

1. Siege assault upgrade (requires blacksmith), granting the selected unit heavy lamellar and additional health, attack and defense boost.

2. Subterfuge upgrade (requires espionage), granting the selected unit the ability to disguise, assassination and sabotage/arson.

Behind the enemy lines by Aemilianvs

https://www.deviantart.com/amelianvs/art/Behind-the-enemy-lines-790119597

[d34d svn]

Special tech for Sasanian units:

Paygan Salar: unlocks Roman Arms and Persian Heavy Spearman upgrade

Grivpanvar/Clibanarii: special optional upgrade for Azadan Cavalry, granting full horse armor and additional boost on attack, defense and health.

On 07/06/2024 at 12:38 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I like this a lot.

Perhaps a fire or poisonous siege unit? (Thinking of the siege of Dura Europas here)

Chemical attack option (requires siege warfare, sappers tech) for Dismounted Azadan Cavalry, Siege equipment upgrade (optional upgrade for siege warfare), upon receiving siege equipment upgrade the unit become a Dismounted Grivpanvar/Clibanarii, Subterfuge upgrade (requires espionage) allows disguise, assassinate, arson and sabotage.