History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VI

[Masada]

Interesting sources. I recalled the Immortals being said to wear scale cuirasses. But even then they were outmatched by the best Greek hoplites, who had helmets with faceguards, large, heavy wooden shields, bronze breast- and backplates, and greaves. Even the Immortals seemed to lack so much as helmets. Their wicker shields were light and able to parry blows and stop arrows and sling bullets, but probably weren't too effective against spear thrusts. Greek spears were significantly longer than Persian spears, and their swords outmatched the Persian akinakes, which was basically a long dagger. True, your average hoplite didn't necessarily have much armor beyond a helmet, if that, but their emphasis on close combat of phalanxes, and their suitable equipment, were more than a match for lighter Persian troops.

You seem to be conflating a bunch of things here. I wasn't talking about the average Persian soldier who was, as you noted, lightly armored and somewhat more lightly armed (insofar as their spears were shorter) duking it out with the best of Greece or even the Immortals going one on one with the best of Greece. What I was talking about is how the very large, pointy, profressional end of the Persian stick, the bit that did the heavy lifting of empire, and fought campaign after campaign, were broadly comparable to Greek hoplites in most things, and were therefore heavy infantry. I also noted how many of these dudes there were and how the Persians, using just the Immortals, could muster more troops than most city-states and more heavy infantry most of the major leagues. The Boeotian League at the Battle of Lectra only managed something like 7000 hoplites total. I also noted that there might well have been more formations of Persians similarly armed and how this was further augmented with Greek mercenaries. As to the spear issue, I'm not sure the extent to which it matters. Herodotus doesn't mention spear length being the issue in Persian performance but rather their lack of armor. And in the case of the Immortals, he's quite careful to differentiate the battlefield performance of the Persian infantry from the Immortals who, he notes, acquitted themselves very well. This being due, I suppose, to their armor and skill as professional soldiers. So while there might be slight differences in terms of shields and spear length, these things don't seem to have been that important.

tl;dr: Immortals were probably better armored than the average hoplite and qualify as heavy infantry.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Any source for the claim that the "Immortals were likely better armored than the average hoplite"?
Cause afasik they were a smallish force (moreso by Persian empire standards), at 10K troops, and always were set to stay to that number as a unique 'elite' unit tied to the Emperor. By contrast, even the Spartan Homoioi hoplites at Plataea alone were 10K, and there far more hoplites around in that battle

 

[Masada]

^Any source for the claim that the "Immortals were likely better armored than the average hoplite"?

For the second time.

The men who served in the army were the following: the Persians were equipped in this way: they wore on their heads loose caps called tiaras, and on their bodies embroidered sleeved tunics, with scales of iron like the scales of fish in appearance, and trousers on their legs; for shields they had wicker bucklers, with quivers hanging beneath them; they carried short spears, long bows, and reed arrows, and daggers that hung from the girdle by the right thigh.

Most hoplites didn't fight in armor because, in short, they couldn't afford it. The standard was, basically, a shield and spear. As you went up the economic scale people wore more stuff until you eventually hit the fairly wealthy who could afford to maintain the full panoply: helmet, shield and greaves. Compare and contrast this grab-bag mixture of equipment with the Immortals who all wore cuirasses and greaves. The first being, obviously, the most expensive piece of a hoplites panoply and, arguably, the most important. (I'm still a bit lost as to why they didn't wear helmets although that seems to have been more a matter of choice than anything else).

Cause afasik they were a smallish force (moreso by Persian empire standards), at 10K troops, and always were set to stay to that number as a unique 'elite' unit tied to the Emperor. By contrast, even the Spartan Homoioi hoplites at Plataea alone were 10K, and there far more hoplites around in that battle

Heh. To repeat: 10 000 isn't a small force of heavy infantry in the context of an area where even large, relatively successful leagues, couldn't field that many troops total e.g. the Boetian league. You're also wrong. The Spartans only sent, according to Herodotus, 5000 Homoioi with the balance made up of Perioikoi. This means that the Persians fielded in a single unit as many heavy infantry as the most powerful league in Greece. Tellingly, Herodotus also puts the total number of Greek hoplites on the allied side at something like 30 000. That's largish sure but it was an unprecedented concentration and was drawn from a large number of city-states. So the number of Immortals, in short, was very large in pretty much any circumstance other than an unprecedented concentration of troops. This is all according to Herodotus. I'm not even reaching for secondary sources which tend to reduce the total number of troops on both sides a lot.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Even if that was true (Herodotus has some issues, as is known), it would make it quite difficult to explain (in the case that Persia actually had any seriously deemed-of 'heavy infrantry') why the Persian Empire managed to lose to a solely Athenian hoplite force in Lydia (past Ionia and the Greek homelands), in 470 BC at Eurymedon. They seem to have pretty much lost an entire satrapy in a battle against only one Greek power, since the Spartans and their leagues did not pursue war with Persia after all Euro Greek lands in the north were liberated.
They likely would have also lost Egypt (circa 460 BC) if the Peloponnesian war didn't start and so obviously forced Athens to give up on re-inforcing expeditions against the Persian realm.

 

[Masada]

You seem to be responding to arguments I haven't made.

To begin with, all I've said is that the core of the Persian army, the Immortals, were heavy infantry. I said this in response to the view, advanced here, that the Persians didn't have heavy infantry. I've said nothing about the composition of the Persian army generally or whether or not the Persians needed more heavy infantry. I also noted that the size of the Immortals formation was significant, given that it was larger than what most city states could put into the field. But for whatever reason people just seem to want to chat about issues that I haven't even bought up or contested e.g. the prevalence of light infantry in the Persian army*.

* Amusingly, the Greek army at Plataea according to Herodotus was comprised in the main of light infantry. But nobody seems to care about that or chat about how that might have cost the Greek armies Thermopylae or something. But, you know, ancient warfare is all about the kit your dudes ideally carried (nevermind that most never did) and how this was all highly relevant something something. Strategy? Luck? All the other factors and vagaries of battle? What in the hell are those.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Not sure about that, i mostly care about the Lion in the tomb of Leonidas, speaking through the epigrammatic verse of Simonides, and claiming that it (the lion) would not feel like guarding the tomb if the dead person inside it was not accurate named closely to it, as brave and powerfull as the lion is in the realm of carnivores

So i mostly came here to post Hoplite #1 stuff.

 

[Phrossack]

You seem to be conflating a bunch of things here. I wasn't talking about the average Persian soldier who was, as you noted, lightly armored and somewhat more lightly armed (insofar as their spears were shorter) duking it out with the best of Greece or even the Immortals going one on one with the best of Greece. What I was talking about is how the very large, pointy, profressional end of the Persian stick, the bit that did the heavy lifting of empire, and fought campaign after campaign, were broadly comparable to Greek hoplites in most things, and were therefore heavy infantry. I also noted how many of these dudes there were and how the Persians, using just the Immortals, could muster more troops than most city-states and more heavy infantry most of the major leagues. The Boeotian League at the Battle of Lectra only managed something like 7000 hoplites total. I also noted that there might well have been more formations of Persians similarly armed and how this was further augmented with Greek mercenaries. As to the spear issue, I'm not sure the extent to which it matters. Herodotus doesn't mention spear length being the issue in Persian performance but rather their lack of armor. And in the case of the Immortals, he's quite careful to differentiate the battlefield performance of the Persian infantry from the Immortals who, he notes, acquitted themselves very well. This being due, I suppose, to their armor and skill as professional soldiers. So while there might be slight differences in terms of shields and spear length, these things don't seem to have been that important.

tl;dr: Immortals were probably better armored than the average hoplite and qualify as heavy infantry.

That post of mine didn't even mention the average Persian infantry.

I suppose we're operating under different definitions of "heavy infantry" here. I don't really consider the Immortals to be heavy infantry because of their small, likely fragile shields, their limited armor (a cuirass and nothing else, if Herodotus is to be believed), and the fact that they were also armed with bows. If anything, they seem to have been highly trained multirole medium infantry. Hoplites, in contrast, were meant purely for close combat with enemy infantry formations. As such, they had large, sturdy shields, longer spears to give them a reach advantage, and short swords.

You seem to be responding to arguments I haven't made.

To begin with, all I've said is that the core of the Persian army, the Immortals, were heavy infantry. I said this in response to the view, advanced here, that the Persians didn't have heavy infantry. I've said nothing about the composition of the Persian army generally or whether or not the Persians needed more heavy infantry. I also noted that the size of the Immortals formation was significant, given that it was larger than what most city states could put into the field. But for whatever reason people just seem to want to chat about issues that I haven't even bought up or contested e.g. the prevalence of light infantry in the Persian army*.

* Amusingly, the Greek army at Plataea according to Herodotus was comprised in the main of light infantry. But nobody seems to care about that or chat about how that might have cost the Greek armies Thermopylae or something. But, you know, ancient warfare is all about the kit your dudes ideally carried (nevermind that most never did) and how this was all highly relevant something something. Strategy? Luck? All the other factors and vagaries of battle? What in the hell are those.

Nobody's suggesting that kit is the only important factor, or even the main factor. All I've done is ask why the Persians didn't equip the Immortals with better shields, longer weapons, and helmets.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm going to reassert my suggestion that the Persians, too, did not consider equipment to be the main factor in question. The heavy/light distinction in infantry is somewhat changed in modern warfare, but I think that in ancient warfare they are categorised in a similar way to cavalry - heavy infantry are troops whose primary function is to seek out and accept prolonged contact with the enemy at close quarters, while light infantry are primarily expected to harass, skirmish and move over difficult terrain. The same loosely applies today, although the primary means of discrimination is vehicles or no vehicles.

 

[Masada]

That post of mine didn't even mention the average Persian infantry.

Sorry, that was a misread on my part.

I suppose we're operating under different definitions of "heavy infantry" here. I don't really consider the Immortals to be heavy infantry because of their small, likely fragile shields, their limited armor (a cuirass and nothing else, if Herodotus is to be believed), and the fact that they were also armed with bows. If anything, they seem to have been highly trained multirole medium infantry. Hoplites, in contrast, were meant purely for close combat with enemy infantry formations. As such, they had large, sturdy shields, longer spears to give them a reach advantage, and short swords.

Except, as you've noted, the average hoplite often wore no armor and just had a shield and spear. So you're essentially comparing a hypothetical 'best equipped' hoplite with what passed for normal equipment. I'm also not sure if the presence of a bow means all that much. Lots of other heavy infantry, historically, have fought with bows. It isn't a make or break feature. I also think its problematic to assume that the presence of a bow meant that the Immortals weren't as apt at close combat. For one thing, the Immortals, unlike the hoplites, were professional soldiers who fought a lot. So its quite possible that the Immortals were more experienced at close quarters fighting than the Greek troops. It's also, as I noted, interesting that Herodotus takes the time and care to talk about how the Immortals were not at all like the rest of the Persian infantry and were, in fact, comparable in fighting terms to the Greek hoplites.

Nobody's suggesting that kit is the only important factor, or even the main factor. All I've done is ask why the Persians didn't equip the Immortals with better shields, longer weapons, and helmets.

I'm confused. All I said, was, and I quote: "all I've said is that the core of the Persian army, the Immortals, were heavy infantry. I said this in response to the view, advanced here, that the Persians didn't have heavy infantry." Yet you just disagreed with what I said on the basis that they had bows and didn't wear more than a cuirass. So either equipment matters or it doesn't.

To return to equipment issue: I'd also suggest, that the Immortals weren't so equipped because (A) it didn't matter that much, the troops they were fighting, including Greek hoplites, were seldom, if ever, better equipped, (B) they carried bows which tends to necessitate a lighter shield and spear and (C) there were just so damned many of them that even slight improvements in kit didn't matter in the context of a state that would have routinely outnumbered its foes by a significant margin in heavy infantry, horse and troops generally. So the kit worked very well, I guess, until it didn't that one time. Sorta like how Greek hoplite kit worked really well until it didn't against the Makedonians. (I'm sorta using kit in a more expansive form to capture other stuff like organization, composition, tactics and so forth as well because I don't just think it was the sarrisa or the the fact that Makedonian pike tended to bear a minimum set of armor).

I'm going to reassert my suggestion that the Persians, too, did not consider equipment to be the main factor in question. The heavy/light distinction in infantry is somewhat changed in modern warfare, but I think that in ancient warfare they are categorised in a similar way to cavalry - heavy infantry are troops whose primary function is to seek out and accept prolonged contact with the enemy at close quarters, while light infantry are primarily expected to harass, skirmish and move over difficult terrain. The same loosely applies today, although the primary means of discrimination is vehicles or no vehicles.

I think this is a sound definition. Although, I'd go somewhat further and suggest that light infantry at least in the ancient world outside of Greece often fought in the line. Usually, as a means, I suppose, of keeping enemy formations from reacting or while the rest of their army was shredded by heavy infantry and/or cavalry or as a means of bloodying formations before the heavies were bought up.

 

[Phrossack]

Except, as you've noted, the average hoplite often wore no armor and just had a shield and spear. So you're essentially comparing a hypothetical 'best equipped' hoplite with what passed for normal equipment. I'm also not sure if the presence of a bow means all that much. Lots of other heavy infantry, historically, have fought with bows. It isn't a make or break feature. I also think its problematic to assume that the presence of a bow meant that the Immortals weren't as apt at close combat. For one thing, the Immortals, unlike the hoplites, were professional soldiers who fought a lot. So its quite possible that the Immortals were more experienced at close quarters fighting than the Greek troops. It's also, as I noted, interesting that Herodotus takes the time and care to talk about how the Immortals were not at all like the rest of the Persian infantry and were, in fact, comparable in fighting terms to the Greek hoplites.

Those are fair points.

I'm confused. All I said, was, and I quote: "all I've said is that the core of the Persian army, the Immortals, were heavy infantry. I said this in response to the view, advanced here, that the Persians didn't have heavy infantry." Yet you just disagreed with what I said on the basis that they had bows and didn't wear more than a cuirass. So either equipment matters or it doesn't.

When I said that equipment wasn't everything, I was referring to success in battle. You'd said

But, you know, ancient warfare is all about the kit your dudes ideally carried (nevermind that most never did) and how this was all highly relevant something something. Strategy? Luck? All the other factors and vagaries of battle? What in the hell are those.

, as though I thought equipment is the only factor that matters in war and that strategy, luck, intel, and logistics didn't matter.

When classifying infantry or cavalry as heavy or light, though, I do tend to focus on equipment. Possibly because of my obsession with armor, but also because armor seems a defining feature of heavy infantry or cavalry (in pre-modern times, at least. Not talking about mechanized infantry vs. footmen and the like). If you take one foot soldier equipped with a spear, a knife, and a tunic, and compare him with a foot soldier clad head to toe in armor and guarded with a shield, I'll call only the latter one a heavy infantry soldier. Even if they're both intended to be used for sustained close combat. Perhaps my armor snobbery means my standards for what counts as "heavy armor" are too high.

To return to equipment issue: I'd also suggest, that the Immortals weren't so equipped because (A) it didn't matter that much, the troops they were fighting, including Greek hoplites, were seldom, if ever, better equipped, (B) they carried bows which tends to necessitate a lighter shield and spear and (C) there were just so damned many of them that even slight improvements in kit didn't matter in the context of a state that would have routinely outnumbered its foes by a significant margin in heavy infantry, horse and troops generally. So the kit worked very well, I guess, until it didn't that one time. Sorta like how Greek hoplite kit worked really well until it didn't against the Makedonians. (I'm sorta using kit in a more expansive form to capture other stuff like organization, composition, tactics and so forth as well because I don't just think it was the sarrisa or the the fact that Makedonian pike tended to bear a minimum set of armor).

Those are also good points. I suppose that since the Persians outnumbered their enemies most of the time and usually won, they saw no need to change, as you say. The later Sassanids, in contrast, faced tougher foes with fewer resources and decided to use heavy infantry.

 

[Masada]

, as though I thought equipment is the only factor that matters in war and that strategy, luck, intel, and logistics didn't matter.

I was being sarcastic. But since that's all everyone's talked about, I think the gist of it was quite fair.

Perhaps my armor snobbery means my standards for what counts as "heavy armor" are too high.

I think your problem is more than your fixating on what the best of the hoplite elite wore and using that as a standard which is strange because both know the standard was actually far far lower.

Those are also good points. I suppose that since the Persians outnumbered their enemies most of the time and usually won, they saw no need to change, as you say. The later Sassanids, in contrast, faced tougher foes with fewer resources and decided to use heavy infantry.

I think they were also qualitatively better too, generally speaking.

 

[cybrxkhan]

What color was Anna Komnena's hair? (Or at least her father's/brothers')

 

[Kyriakos]

^Iirc at least her brother (emperor Ioannes B' Komnenos; he was her brother, right?) had black hair, but he is said to have been Tyrion-like (while Alexios B' Komnenos was Lancer Lannister or something).
Moreover Tyrion/Ioannes B' also had a cut-throat as a hypaspist, Bronn-styled

 

[cybrxkhan]

^Iirc at least her brother (emperor Ioannes B' Komnenos; he was her brother, right?) had black hair, but he is said to have been Tyrion-like (while Alexios B' Komnenos was Lancer Lannister or something).
Moreover Tyrion/Ioannes B' also had a cut-throat as a hypaspist, Bronn-styled

Hmm. So Anna was likely a hot brainy brunette/raven-haired or something, I'm guessing then?

 

[Kyriakos]

Don't know, but i hope she looked like this:

 

[Traitorfish]

Like Rachel Weisz?

 

[cybrxkhan]

Like Rachel Weisz?

That works for me.

Note to self: if a movie is ever made where Anna Komnene is a character, hire Rachel Weisz to play her.

 

[Domen]

Coming back to that discussion about cavalry several pages ago.

Video below shows a cavalry battle scene from 1938 Soviet war movie "If War Comes Tomorrow":

http://latvianhistory.wordpress.com...soviet-movie-that-predicted-the-world-war-ii/


Link to video.

Another fragment:


Link to video.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Good save! Indeed the thread was running a clear risk of moving far away from Poland

 

[Domen]

Ekhm. Soviet Union =/= Poland.