During the latter part of the eighth century and early decades of the seventh century bce, the Iranians made their appearance in the history of the ancient Near East. During that time, the Iranian tribes known as the Medes and the Persians showed up in the records of the Assyrian kings. Apparently, those tribes had been steadily replacing some of the existing non- Iranian states on the fringes of the Assyrian Empire. At certain times, they held tributary status to the Assyrians, but at others, they were arrayed against them, usually in alliance with other peoples. By the late seventh century, the Medes seem to have established a confederacy of sorts and become the dominant Iranian kingdom, ruling over the Persians and controlling a small empire.
During the reign of the king Cyaxares, the Medes are said to have made military reforms including the division of soldiers according to their function— cavalry, infantry archers, and infantry spearmen—and then brigading these types together into units. Cyaxares used his new-model army to expand the Median kingdom, fighting a war against the Lydians that ended in a marriage alliance between the two states. In about 615 bce, he and his forces, in alliance with the Babylonians, fought against Assyria and in 612 bce sacked their capital at Nineveh. Further Median expansion seems to have been halted by an invasion by the Scythians, nomadic horse archers from the steppes of central Asia (see Chapter 6 for the steppe nomads).
The dominance of the Medes would, however, last less than a century. In the mid-sixth century bce, the Medes would be replaced by another Iranian tribe, the Persians. The rise of the Persian dynasty known as the Achaemenids occurred under Cyrus the Great. Herodotus tells the story of Cyrus’s rise to power via a successful revolt against the Medes after being marked for death as a child by his grandfather, the Median king Astyages. The story seems to stem from a Near Eastern tradition of kingship, paralleling such leaders as Sargon of Akkad and Moses. It seems more likely that Cyrus was, in fact, a client king of the Medes in the mid-sixth century and exploited that position to lead his revolt; however, some elements in Herodotus’s story seem to have a basis in fact. For example, we are told that Astyages sent an army against the upstart Persian and that the general of that force, who had been wronged by the king, defected along with a large portion of his troops. Indeed, Cyrus does seem to have been joined by disaffected troops from the Median army. With a large force of Persians whom he had mustered at Pasargadai (“camp of the Persians,” the eventual site of a palace complex and his tomb) and his new Median allies, Cyrus marched against Astyages and defeated him in 550 bce. Cyrus then assumed the kingship of the former Median Empire.
Shortly thereafter, Cyrus began the first in a series of campaigns to expand the Achaemenid Empire. The first realm to be defeated was Lydia, the rich kingdom that occupied Anatolia west of the Halys River. Lydia was, due to its position and trade interests, a strong and wealthy state, with an army that included an excellent cavalry force and a number of mercenaries. In 547 bce, the Lydian king Croesus marched against Cyrus, and an indecisive battle was fought. Croesus then retired to his capital at Sardis, planning to raise additional troops and renew the war the following year. But Cyrus daringly continued the campaign against the Lydians, even though the campaigning season was coming to an end. In the next battle, Cyrus showed his tactical flexibility by neutralizing the powerful Lydian horsemen with a screen of camels (horses will not advance on camels due to the latter’s odd odor) and won the victory. In subsequent campaigns, Babylon and areas of eastern Iran were added to the empire. In fact, Cyrus spent nearly all of his reign in the field, in 530 bce perishing in battle with the Massagetai along his northwestern frontier.
An able administrator, Cyrus set the pattern for what would become the Persian method of ruling a large, multiethnic empire. While borrowing many structural elements of Assyrian political and military organization, Cyrus avoided their harshness. He showed a willingness to be extremely tolerant in dealing with his subjects—in particular, embracing the priesthoods of conquered peoples. In Babylon, for instance, he identified his success with the approval of the deity Marduk, and he provided the Jews with the resources to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus also allowed non-Persians to hold important positions in both the civil administration and the army.
Cyrus was succeeded by his son Cambyses, whose reign was not as successful as his father’s. Cambyses did not show the same tolerance toward his subjects, nor was he as skillful at managing the Persian elite for royal ends. He did, however, add Egypt to the empire, in a campaign in 525 bce that foreshadowed the sophisticated nature of subsequent Persian operations. He arranged for a supply train of camels carrying the water and food necessary to support his army, and he augmented this by mounting a joint operation using a Phoenician fleet, both to provide logistical support and to deal with the Egyptian fleet. But after his conquest of Egypt, Cambyses faced rebellion at home. His brother (or an imposter pretending to be his brother, as Cambyses may have murdered his brother) organized a revolt back in Iran. Before he could suppress the rebellion, Cambyses died of infection after being accidentally stabbed by his own dagger while hurriedly mounting his horse. In the wake of his death, a group of nobles called the Seven defeated the rebels in a civil war and chose one of their number, Darius, to be king.
Under Darius I (the Great) the Persian Empire would reach its largest territorial extent, with the borders reaching Thrace in the west and the Indus River valley in the east (Figure 2.1). Darius also undertook to organize the empire both administratively and militarily. Although he continued to extend the frontiers, the frenetic pace of expansion that characterized the reigns of his predecessors slowed, giving Darius the opportunity to formalize the organization of the state.
Figure 2.1 Persian Empire, c. 500 BCE
Darius organized the Persian Empire into twenty large administrative units called satrapies, governed by officials known as satraps. The satrapies were made up of several peoples, usually centered on one particular group, who supplied the empire with tribute and troops in time of war. The satraps from the time of Darius onward were, with few exceptions, members of the Persian nobility—powerful individuals with financial and military resources. In order to keep the satraps’ political ambitions in check, the Great King maintained an official known as the King’s Eye who, in turn, maintained a number of listeners (the King’s Ears) who were sent out to the provinces to observe the satraps. In this way, the Persian elite were both co-opted and controlled.
The Royal Army The incessant campaigns of Cyrus the Great required the creation of a standing army. This army initially seems to have consisted of 10,000 Persian infantry and 10,000 Persian cavalry, as well as a force of Medes. This was an important development in the history of Persian rule since it made the army an instrument of royal authority and lessened the king’s dependence on the Persian nobility and their retinues.
The Persian army has often been portrayed as an ineffectual force, driven into battle under the lash of its officers. This view emerged from a generally hostile Greek tradition dating to the Persian Wars: The Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries held the Persian army in low esteem since they had defeated them. But the reality was surely different—the Persians acquired the largest empire in world history to that time, and that empire was won by force of arms.
Careful reading of Greek texts also reveals a grudging admiration for the martial ability of the Persian troops, as well as their bravery and tenacity in battle. This fits with what we know of virtues that were held dear by the Persian nobility. In both the Greek texts and Persian royal inscriptions, the Persians place paramount importance on the role of skill in warfare. Persian inscriptions emphasize the king’s ability to use both bow and spear, whether on horseback or on foot, and young Persians were taught “to ride, use the bow, and to speak the truth.”
The emphasis on speaking the truth is a clue to the ideological development of Persian civilization, for it was during this period that Zoroastrianism developed as the religion of the Persian elite. The prophet Zarathustra may, in fact, have lived several centuries earlier (firm historical evidence of his life is mostly lacking), but the religion based on his teachings seems to have developed in conjunction with the growth of Persian power. It served to legitimate and reinforce royal authority, helping the royal house subordinate the Persian aristocratic elite to the wider purposes of ruling subject peoples. This, in turn, helped shape the development of the military system and, more broadly, provided the underpinnings of a Persian ethnic identity capable of resisting assimilation by the older cultures absorbed into the Persian Empire (see the Issues box “War and Ideologies”).
In order to inculcate military skills and religious tenets into Persian youths and so provide the forces necessary to rule the empire, the government put selected Persian boys through an education system designed to prepare them as soldiers. From age 5 until age 20, they were trained in the use of weapons (spear, javelin, and bow), riding, and running long distances; they were also expected to get at least some of their supplies through theft. The similarities to the Spartan agog- (see Chapter 3) are remarkable. The period of military service, however, seems to have lasted only until age 24.
Units and Equipment
The Persians were organized on the Assyrian model into units of 1000 men called hazttrttbam, commanded by a hazarapatis. The hazarttbam were, in turn, divided into subunits of 100 men, and those into squads of 10 men. These troops, clad in light scaled armor, used the traditional Persian weapons of bow and spear. There is some question as to how these arms were coordinated in battle, but it seems as if the Persians employed a variation on the archer-and-shield pair used by the Assyrians. Most likely, each squad was deployed into a single file. The soldier in the front rank was armed with a spear and a large wicker shield known as a spara. This soldier would set up his large shield in conjunction with others like him and create a barrier to the enemy. If the enemy drew near, he would defend his file with his spear. The other nine members of the file would be equipped with bows and perhaps spears as well. Their role in battle was to launch volleys of arrows against the enemy. Persian cavalry seem to have been similarly equipped but would have carried only the spear, or javelin, and bow, not the unwieldy spara.
Persian Immortals
These crack regiments formed the King’s Guard.
The most important of the standing Persian regiments were the ten hazarabam known as the Immortals, who formed the King’s Guard. The most elite unit of these crack regiments, in turn, was the hazarabam known as the Applebearers, from the golden apples that served as counterweights on their spears. This unit seems to have served as the personal bodyguard to the Great King himself. There were also at least 1000 cavalry who formed part of the Royal Guard, as well as regiments formed from other Iranians including Medes, Cissians, and Hyrcanians. Some hazarabam may have been formed from mercenaries and others drawn from the more martial peoples of the empire, including Scythians. These seem to have served in military colonies where they may have been subjected to Iranian forms of training, equipment, and tactics.
Parade Armies
The Iranian regiments formed the heart of the Persian forces that fought in the great wars of the fifth century bce. But Herodotus and others describe great gatherings of troops drawn from virtually every nationality throughout the empire, reinforcing the image of an unwieldy, poorly integrated Persian military. In all likelihood, only small contingents of these satrapal levies were actually taken on campaign. The Great King used large “parade armies” and reviews of provincial troops, not to actually fight, but to demonstrate the vastness of his empire and his power to his enemies abroad and to his own people, including his elites.
After the wars against the Greeks (see Chapter 3), the Persian Empire was beset by military troubles in the form of sporadic rebellions carried out by rebel Persian satraps as well as more ethnically motivated uprisings in satrapies such as Egypt. Moreover, the defeats suffered in Greece must have taken a toll on the manpower of those Iranian groups who had formed the mainstay of the Royal Army and on the prestige of the Royal Army. Over the course of the next century and a half, the Persian Empire was forced to make changes to its military establishment.
The king was able to maintain an Iranian Royal Guard—there are mentions of Applebearers and Kinsmen who fought beside the king in the fourth century—but their numbers may not have been as large as in the fifth century. In addition to the Royal Army, there is evidence for the increasing use of troops maintained by the satraps and other members of the Persian nobility. These forces could number in the hundreds and be very well equipped. The most famous example was the 600 heavily armored cavalry who formed the bodyguard of Cyrus the Younger in his failed effort to assume the throne. Ultimately, the Persians were forced to make more extensive use of foreign mercenaries, especially Greeks. The most famous example involved the 10,000 Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger in 401 bce. This trend continued until the very end of the dynasty in the 330s. The last Persian king, Darius III, hired tens of thousands of Greek mercenaries in his war with Alexander and used Greek officers as high-ranking commanders (see Chapter 3).
The Persians did, however, try to create a homegrown force, called Kadakes, to replace the lost Iranian regiments. The idea was to draw on the extensive manpower of the empire but to train the recruits in the Iranian military system. This was achieved by allowing non-Iranians to enter the Persian military training system (which has already been described). The effort seems to have been fairly successful, since Kadakes apparently formed the majority of at least one major Persian army during the fourth century. Moreover, after conquering the empire, Alexander appears to have modified the Persian education system to train young Persians to fight like Macedonians.
With the Alexandrian conquest, the Persian Empire went into eclipse for several centuries. But the cultural and ideological infrastructure created by the Achaemenids would survive among the Persians, to be drawn on (in modified form, certainly) first by nomadic Parthians who wrested control of the area from its Hellenistic rulers in the second century bce, and then decisively after 226 CE by the Sassanians, a native dynasty that consciously revived the symbolism of and connections to Zoroastrianism that underlay much Persian success under the Achaemenids (see Chapter 8).
Zoroastrianism was a religion with universal claims (Ahura-Mazda is said to have created the entire universe), whose practice was restricted to a Chosen People, the Persians, who stood in a special relationship to the deity. Much like the developed form of Judaism that emerged at the same time (and probably in mutual influence with Zoroastrianism), the Persian religion served in part to bind together and give a stable identity to a minority people in a large, multiethnic, multicultural empire—although the Persians, unlike the Hebrews, were the ruling minority. Thus, Persian religious development was at least in part a product of warfare, and in particular of the Persians’ success at creating through conquest a vast empire of which they formed only one element. The tenets of Zoroastrianism that stressed truth telling and personal ethics based in individual choice between good and evil may well, in turn, have influenced Persian efforts at creating a government benevolent to all peoples of the empire. Warfare did not determine the specific features of Zoroastrian theology and cosmology. But warfare, conquest, and a religion with origins in a chariot-riding warrior elite (it emerged from an earlier Indo-European religious complex in which a war god played a central role and that was to develop in different ways in India) were intimately linked in the rise of a religion that had deep influence on subsequent religious developments in southwest Asia.
This link between warfare, warrior elites, and new systems of thought constitutes one of the defining characteristics of this age in Eurasia, though the resulting philosophies and religions differed widely, as did the social and political structures that emerged in tandem with them. In India, the Aryan warrior elite that shared common Indo-European origins with the Persians (and, in fact, with the Greeks) dominated early Indian society, as did Persian chariot warriors. Unlike Zoroastrianism, which helped co-opt the warrior elite into a stronger central state, the Vedic religion that evolved into Hinduism cemented the social and political dominance of warriors in the system of class and caste that structured Indian life, often to the detriment of the development of lasting strong central government, as we will see. But through the Bhagavad Gita story of the great warrior Arjuna and the ethical dilemma he faces on the battlefield, a dilemma his charioteer Krishna (really the god Vishnu in disguise) helps him solve, the warrior ethos became the metaphorical foundation for ethical thought about social duty throughout Hindu society. Thus, in Persia and India, religious transformation and development was tied closely to warfare and to warrior elites.
Unlike in Persia and India, where warfare raised questions of the divine role in history or society and only indirectly touched on questions of government, in China, the warfare of the Warring States era formed the focal point of a much more secular examination of how to govern states and societies efficiently and humanely. This gave rise to a range of philosophies that included Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, as well as a vast literature directly concerned with warfare itself as a tool of state (see the Sources box “Sun Zi” later in the chapter). China’s culture of war and violence originated, as elsewhere, in the idea of a chariot-riding warrior elite. However, the emphasis on autocratic state power that became central to Chinese political and secular philosophies during the Warring States era was accompanied, not by a co-opting of the elite into government as in Persia, nor by the continued dominance of warriors as in India, but by the elimination of warrior elites as a separate class in Chinese society.
Finally, as we will see in Chapter 3, poleis (city-states), phalanx warfare, and Greek philosophy developed in mutual influence with each other, producing another major tradition of secular philosophy. It is significant and not coincidental that the great intellectual traditions of this age had their origins in how people thought about, conceived, and justified the use of violence.