Wargrunt: The Immortals and the Achaemenid War Machine: Part 2

As Goes the Royal House, so Goes the Empire

Welcome to the second entry in my overview of the early Achaemenid Persian army and its famous Immortals.

This post looks at the psychology of the Achaemenid Persian empire and how the nomadic nature of the Achaemenid Imperial court affected the Persian military system.

This post is (mainly) illustrated with pictures of my recently refurbished, semi-mythical army of Cyrus the great DBA I/60b.

The King of Kings on his throne. An old (ancient really) 25mm Hinchcliffe diorama - with added concubine.

The Achaemenids ran their empire and arguably their military in a somewhat idiosyncratic manner that reflected their world view. Central to Achaemenid society and identity was the King of Kings who in Zoarastrianism, the state religion, while not seen as divine was still more than a man.

The king was expected to honour the Persian god Ahuramazda and prosecute His will by defeating the evil of His son Ahriman, by imposing civil order and equilibrium on the chaos of the world.

This might be achieved by the actions of divine law or by brute force, whether actual or merely threatened. It has been suggested that all Achaemenid military activity (wars of territorial expansion, conquest and reconquest, suppression of rebellions) was a type of holy war.

The army of Xenophon's semi-mythical Cyropedia DBA I/60b

The Great King therefore served Ahuramazda as a divine instrument for establishing order and justice on earth and in return was supported by the god.

So, in the words of Darius I:

“When Ahuramazda saw this earth turbulent, then he bestowed it on me ...By the will of Ahuramazda I set it again in its place” and, “After Ahuramazda made me king in this earth, by the will of Ahuramazda all (that) I did was good.”.

In essence, Achaemenid imperialism and expansionism was viewed as creating peace for the greater good.

The idea of a kind of Pax Achaemenica is further played out in royal monuments. All imperial powers use monumental images to project something of their ethos. For example, royal Assyrian monuments revel in the cruelties and efficiencies of their military.

By contrast, palace monuments of the Achaeminds show the king and Ahuramazda surrounded by gift-bearing subjects and emphasise order and the king's peace. That spear and bow armed infantrymen were depicted (though less centrally) in very large numbers, symbolised that the king's military power was there when needed.

Actual depictions of Persians at war are not found at the empire's centre. Instead they are found in seals, gemstones and cylinders found at the empire's peripheries. Persians defeating Greeks in the west and Central Asian infantry in the Near East. War happens at the empire's edges.

Iranian Kashite infantry

8Bw / Sparabara in DBA speak

The centrality of the Great King was of utmost importance. Royal courts played a central role in all ancient Near Eastern politics and culture, and the Persian court was the ancient court par excellence. So important was the Great King’s court that throughout the Empire, satraps replicated its forms, structures, customs, and ceremonies.

Cyrus' improvised camel corps

Sources, both Persian and Greek, attest to the Great King and his court systematically and continually crossing the Empire between Ecbatana, Susa, Babylon, Persepolis and many other locales in the central part of the Empire – and sometimes far beyond. This satisfied both the need to display the King’s power and a deep-set instinct in the nomadic Persian psyche that required a regular itinerant pattern of movement.

Persian or Medes cavalry

The Great King’s vast mobile household and its theatrical displays of power, was the most effective symbol of royal authority and was the epicentre of the political, military, economic, and cultural structures of the Empire. Further, it provided the contact point between the King and regional and local levels.

In a very real sense, where the king went, so did the Empire. The king travelled with all his insignia of power - religious banners, fire altars, and an entourage of priests, his treasury, the royal harem in covered wagons, multitudes of kinsmen and servants – and with a powerful military force, funded by the omnipresent military taxes.

As mentioned in Part 1, Satraps themselves did not have large military forces on call, however, that doesn’t mean there was no significant standing force and characteristically, such forces centred around the King.

It is here where the Immortals fit into the Persian military system.

Abradatus driving his scythed chariot into the enemy

Part 3 dives into who the Immortals really were.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

The Immortals and the Achaemenid War Machine: Part 2

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