History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VI

[Flying Pig]

Given that the Persians were fighting with light weapons and armour hundreds of miles from home, and the Greeks fought in heavy armour to defend their own soil against an extremely hated enemy, it's not difficult to imagine that the initial contact would have been as violent as it was one-sided. I can't imagine many of the conscripted Persian infanteers would have been particularly invested in trying to reverse what must have been a severe immediate shock. As for the subjugations, my understanding is that they submitted without fighting, intimidated by the sheer size of the Persian forces: bear in mind that Athens and Sparta led the resistance and suffered hugely for it, and that they were immeasurably bigger and more powerful than the overwhelming majority of Greek poleis.

 

[Agent327]

That being said, my understanding is that Plataea was a fairly flat area, no?

Which is why the Greeks refused to give battle for 11 days in an area well suited for Persian cavalry deployment. Battle only ensued when the Persian commander mistook a Greek retreat for flight and ordered pursuit. To the Persian dismay the Spartans, Tegeans and Athenians did give battle and slaughtered the remains of the Persian army (the main force already having retreated with Xerxes).

 

[Mouthwash]

You realize this sort of stuff is why nobody ever bothers trying to answer any questions you ask, right?

His answers seem- uninformed of the relevant literature. The Persians repeatedly tried to force engagements at Marathon and Boeotia, both of them being areas suited for cavalry. The battle of Marathon was ostensibly won when their cavalry was taken out of the equation. So yeah, I'm quite aware that it can't be used anywhere and everywhere.

 

[History_Buff]

Seems to also be why it was called Plataea

Confound your obvious word endings! Weird French imports or nothing!


(That had actually never occurred to me, and now I'm feeling rather foolish about it, since it should be painfully obvious in English.)

His answers seem- uninformed of the relevant literature. The Persians repeatedly tried to force engagements at Marathon and Boeotia, both of them being areas suited for cavalry. The battle of Marathon was ostensibly won when their cavalry was taken out of the equation. So yeah, I'm quite aware that it can't be used anywhere and everywhere.

For the record, I haven't ever read anything on Greek history, so your accusation isn't entirely off-base. Your question just seemed rooted in the conventional western tale that hoplite armies slowed (at Thermopylae) and then threw back (at Plataea) the Persians, and why couldn't those silly Persians just have beat the upstart Greeks into the dust, must be those Persians were real dumb or something.

Given that the Persians won plenty of other battles, the Greek campaign comes down, like so many other things, to logistics. And that the Greeks seem to have got really, really lucky. Not to deprive them of their agency or anything, they clearly knew what they were doing and stuck to their strengths, but it's rather surprisingly that Salamis and Plataea were as one sided as they were, which suggests the Greeks got real lucky.

 

[Mouthwash]

For the record, I haven't ever read anything on Greek history, so your accusation isn't entirely off-base. Your question just seemed rooted in the conventional western tale that hoplite armies slowed (at Thermopylae) and then threw back (at Plataea) the Persians, and why couldn't those silly Persians just have beat the upstart Greeks into the dust, must be those Persians were real dumb or something.

Given that the Persians won plenty of other battles, the Greek campaign comes down, like so many other things, to logistics. And that the Greeks seem to have got really, really lucky. Not to deprive them of their agency or anything, they clearly knew what they were doing and stuck to their strengths, but it's rather surprisingly that Salamis and Plataea were as one sided as they were, which suggests the Greeks got real lucky.

Then why did the Greeks always always always win even after that particular invasion was over? Mycale, Eurymedon, Salamis-in-Cyprus, etc. It beggars belief.

 

[Louis XXIV]

The Greeks lost battles in Asia Minor. The whole Persian War started because the Ionion City States rebelled and were subdued by Persia. Athens lent their support and were then unable to stop them from being re-conquered.

 

[Mouthwash]

The Greeks lost battles in Asia Minor. The whole Persian War started because the Ionion City States rebelled and were subdued by Persia. Athens lent their support and were then unable to stop them from being re-conquered.

Ephesus was the exception that proves the rule. Mounted archers beating Greek spearmen. It's the only battle that seems to go exactly how common sense would tell you it would.

 

[Flying Pig]

I think you've over-simplified how warfare works and overestimated how homogenous the Persian army would have been. It's certainly not rock-paper-scissors business as it is in Civ.

 

[CaptainLost]

Mouthwash, what is the point in asking a question if you don't want an answer? Or if you only want a specific answer? Are you just trying to get into an argument?

 

[Mouthwash]

I can't stand how the racist primitives got the last laugh over those gibberish-speaking, effeminate Persians (who were culturally ahead of the Greeks in almost every respect).

 

[sophie]

Then why did the Greeks always always always win even after that particular invasion was over? Mycale, Eurymedon, Salamis-in-Cyprus, etc. It beggars belief.

Because if they didn't we wouldn't be talking about it.

 

[Phrossack]

Ephesus was the exception that proves the rule. Mounted archers beating Greek spearmen. It's the only battle that seems to go exactly how common sense would tell you it would.

Archery becomes a lot less effective when it's directed at (at least partially) armored men with large shields. The Greek slingers and archers probably helped keep the horse archers at bay.

However, I'm also baffled as to why the Persians didn't bother developing good heavy infantry. Heaven knows they had the money. Even when Alexander invaded, they just hired tens of thousands of Greek mercs rather than get their own heavy infantry.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Maybe they had no sufficient class for maintaining such a force; i mean the hoplites were citizens, and they trained for war as well as being in schools for concurrent math and literature. In the Persian empire it is very unlikely there were classes between the king and surrounding aristocracy, something like a satrap-centered oligarchy (even Themistocles was made a satrap and given three cities to control) and then the seas of subject peoples.

 

[Phrossack]

^Maybe they had no sufficient class for maintaining such a force; i mean the hoplites were citizens, and they trained for war as well as being in schools for concurrent math and literature. In the Persian empire it is very unlikely there were classes between the king and surrounding aristocracy, something like a satrap-centered oligarchy (even Themistocles was made a satrap and given three cities to control) and then the seas of subject peoples.

Couldn't the Kings of Kings simply buy good armor and shields for the Immortals or some new corps of infantry? They tended to be absurdly rich.

 

[Kyriakos]

Couldn't the Kings of Kings simply buy good armor and shields for the Immortals or some new corps of infantry? They tended to be absurdly rich.

Maybe they did or tried to, but i suppose it was more practical (given they were near Greece and already needing some real anti-hoplite defense) to just pay Greek merc hoplites instead of developing a years-long plan to train their own better soldiers to use heavy armor and both a spear and a sword. Also (afaik, which on this topic is little) it is argued that the Greek soldiers also had some regular training in non-weapon combat (and anyway in the olympics a lot of the events were hand combat-based).

And - of course - some city states just had far better hoplites (eg Sparta).

 

[CaptainLost]

Is anything aside from what's on the Stele of Vultures known about the Sumerian military?

 

[Flying Pig]

Couldn't the Kings of Kings simply buy good armor and shields for the Immortals or some new corps of infantry? They tended to be absurdly rich.

That's a bit like asking why the Athenians didn't buy horses and bows for their soldiers, I think - though I confess it's making me think.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Ephesus was the exception that proves the rule. Mounted archers beating Greek spearmen. It's the only battle that seems to go exactly how common sense would tell you it would.

Since you're big into studying classical antiquity, I'll point out that Exception that Proves the Rule doesn't mean what you're saying. What you're saying is "there's an outlier I can't explain." It doesn't explain the other cases or even add any proof of what you say is the "rule." In fact, the original phrase was from Cicero as exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis, meaning "the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted." The best example is "no parking on Sundays" proves that there's a rule that you can park there the other days. Otherwise, why would they declare that it is prohibited on Sundays?

In addition, the Persians defeated the Eretrians (from Euboea) among many others. Clearly there was more than one "exception."

 

[Phrossack]

That's a bit like asking why the Athenians didn't buy horses and bows for their soldiers, I think - though I confess it's making me think.

That's not an apt comparison. Raising large numbers of native horse archers requires a lot of cultural and material resources, such as large numbers of people who are raised riding and shooting. For that, you need lots of horses and lots of people who have both horses and the time and inclination to practice horse archery for a good decade or two.

The Athenians were never a horse-centric nomadic people, and did not possess all that many horses. Compared to the Persians and steppe nomads, their cultures of riding, archery, and horse archery were pretty weak. Greek culture at this time doesn't seem to have emphasized archery; sure, you get leftovers of earlier culture, like Mycenean culture, that valued archery, what with Herakles and Philoctetus being great archers, but that time had long since passed.

Fighting as heavy infantry, on the other hand, requires a functioning body, some weapons, and most likely a shield and some kind of decent armor. The Persians already had large infantry armies, and they certainly had the resources to equip a good number of them as heavy infantry. But they didn't.

Possibly it was because the empire allowed subject peoples to fight in their own style, and most of their satrapies focused on skirmishers, light infantry, or cavalry rather than heavy infantry. Perhaps they thought that it wasn't worth equipping heavy infantry just to fight one specific group of enemies whom they thought they could beat anyway. But these excuses are kinda weak. Persian infantry (especially the Immortals) certainly did engage in a lot of close combat where good shields and armor could've helped. The inclinations of non-Persian peoples might not have mattered if the Persian emperors had just better equipped their Immortals or created their own royal corps of armored infantry. And the Greeks' repeated victories against the Persians should have shown that Persian infantry were rather lacking.

Maybe the Persians just didn't suffer enough defeats over a long enough timespan to realize the need for heavy infantry. The later Sassanids had heavy infantry, but their situation was different. The Achaemenid Persian emperors were indisputably the most powerful sovereigns in their part of the world, and possibly in the whole world. They were used to victories and had few major enemies until Alexander. The Sassanids, on the other hand, had to fight the more powerful Roman Empire for over three centuries, over the course of which they gradually mastered siege warfare and got heavy infantry. They weren't as powerful as the Achaemenids, so they may have seen the need to adopt any techniques and technology that could have helped.

But I dunno. Knowing that your lightly- or unarmored footmen with cane shields get massacred by heavy infantry, and then not doing anything about it, seems like trouble.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I'm no expert, but I assume there's a lot of training and cultural practices necessary for heavy infantry, just like with archery. Mind you, it would be entirely different set of values and skills, but it's not like you could take someone used to fighting lightly armored and just place 30 pounds of steel on them. They need to learn how to fight with the extra weight (along with obtaining the necessary muscle to carry that weight) and would require a completely different doctrine and approach to battle.

Maybe the Persian's at the time just didn't feel the need to have large amounts of slow moving soldiers? So they never developed the skills or fighting style required?

At least, it seems like it would from a layman's perspective. Please feel free to tear it apart.