Talk:Military of the Sasanian Empire

GA delisted

Reasons given are :

• Could the Ranks subsection be a little more elaborate instead of a pure list, maybe a table or a longer description would be necessary.
• Beside the downfall of the Azadan nobility, there is no mention of any downfall of the Sassanid army, showing that the article isn't broad enough.
• Were there any battle won by this army?
• Where was the army situated in the world ... can we pinpoint that to the modern world. (Might be mentioned in the lead section though not present in the article).
• 2 / 5 images fail to give their Fair Use rationale. Lincher 20:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

My primary concern is that too much weight is given to secondary sources such as Farrokh, Nicolle, etc. Primary or near primary sources such as Maurikios' Strategikon, Ammianus, Al-Tabari etc are not cited. Doug Me

A secondary concern is that the use of the name 'Sassanid' is now deprecated by most scholars. The preferred usage is 'Sasanian'. In addition, the distinction between Clibinari and Cataphracts is fanciful. Compare the equipment lists and see where they are derived from. Tabari refers to an inspection of cavalry equipment, there is no contemporary primary evidence of two equipment lists. A cataphract is usually a term reserved for a fully armoured charging cavalryman riding a fully-armoured horse. Clibinari are thought to have been less well-armoured, specifically the horse.

In real terms there is no justification for the use of the term Clibinari in this article. It was a Romano-Byzantine term referring to their own heavily armoured cavalry. Sasanian cavalry could be Asvaran, Diqhuan or a variety of other terms. Doug Me —Preceding comment was added at 04:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Asvaran, Dihqanan, Azadhan, Suwaran and all the other terms seem to denote social status and military rank (Mohsen Zakheri Sasanid Soldiers), so their use in the context of the army could only be limited to Sasanian hierarchy, but then we really know very little about that. There are no grounds for using those terms to show tactical specialisation. Clibanarii and cataphractarii are terms used by the Romans for their own cavalry, they have no real added value in the description of the Persian army. There is only one text on Persian cavalry of Sasanian origin (Tabari, Firdausi, Dinawari, all probably using the same, late Sasanian source), and it describes a fully armoured horseman equipped among other weapons with bow and lance, and riding an armoured horse. When Persian cavalry is shown in battle in Sasanian art, they are also shown as fully armoured horsemen, with armour for body, limbs and often a helmet, equipped with both quiver and lance, and riding an armoured horse. Therefore, based on the little information we have it would not seem to be unreasonable to reject all the other types of Sasanian cavalry, "light" , "medium" and "heavy", as fabrications and assume a Sasanian horseman and his horse were fully armoured, and that he fought with bow, lance, sword and a variety of other weapons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.212.52.128 (talk) 08:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Images Non-Encyclopedic

I would suggest that iamges from a vide game are non-encyclopedic and should be deleted from the article. Unless there is any objection, I will do so and upload some of the monumental artwork showing Sassanid cavalry instead.Larry Dunn 14:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

No objections, so I removed the video game image and replaced it with actual period art -- the Taq-e Bostan relief.Larry Dunn 15:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Khusrau I infantry

The article contains this statement: For instance during Khosrau I era, his infantry were more disciplined and better equipped than Byzantine legions.

Two problems.

1) Byzantine infantry were not organized into "legions"

2) I don't remember ever having read this. Sassanid infantry are usually described as levies, with light infantry in support. Can someone please cite the source for this assertion on the article? Thanks.Larry Dunn 16:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Just tagged the assertion.Larry Dunn 16:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

According with one of the better links of the article, http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Military/sasanian_military.htm

The sassanid infantry wasn't exactly crack troops, and couldn't be compared with the roman infantry (only in archery); but contrary to the Procopious opinion about this infantry, many accounts of battles show that they did well their job, using a tactic based on a shield-spears wall covering the fire of the archers. So yes, we should change the article to a more accurate vision.

-Fco

I looked up Rawlinson p. 185 to see where he got his heavilly armoured infantry from, but I could not find it there or on any other page. I must say this source is a bit silly anyway, the decline of the Persian race through 5.5 years of servitude under the Parthians and that sort of thing, I know you have to see these things in the perspective of its time but that is exactly the problem, he is totally outdated. Going to the horse's mouth, I have read Ammianus Marcellinus, but there I could not find this heavilly armoured infantry, armed with sword and javelin, either. Does anyone know where this heavilly armoured Persian infantry comes from? Has someone mistaken the heavilly armoured Persian cavalry for infantry? Koechlyruestow (talk) 11:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

There is some evidence for armoured Sasanian infantry:

1) Deylamis, mentioned in Byzantine sources, with an impressive set of armour consisting of maille and a cuirass described in Vis ud Ramin

2) Paintings at Dura Europos showing figures wearing Persian trousers, wearing maille hauberks and coifs and carrying hexagonal shields and swords

3) The find of a Persian infantryman equipped in maille and a helmet with maille aventail at Dura Europos. The hauberk was cut in an infantry fashion.

4) Artwork from Gandhara showing infantry. Most wear simple padding but there are several wearing plate cuirasses with a scale skirt split front-to-back that would be unsuitable for cavalry use. Sure, this is Chionite or Hephthalite though.

5) Some paintings from Panjakent show warriors fighting on foot, but they are more likely dismounted cavalry, and it is Sogdian anyway. Sogdian and Sasanian armours were likely quite different.

There may be others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head right now.

No idea about the original statement though. Naddum (talk) 20:02, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Naddum, but I meant the heavilly armoured Persian infantry fighting with sword and spear described in this article. The only Persian armoured infantryman I find convincing is no 3, the soldier found in the collapsed tunnel in Dura Europos. As you say, his hauberk is cut in infantry fashion, it is a light "half-armour" stopping at the waist, with the "skirt" of the cavalry armour, the "damaan-e zereh", removed (the Gandara sculpture shows cavalry-armour, hard to believe as this may be! Persian cavalry tucked their skirts in their belts when they dismounted). It is more likely the paintings of infantry in the synagogue of Dura Europos show local, Roman infantry. The baggy trousers were worn by the oriental citizens of the Roman Empire too, and the hexagonal shields on the murals were still very common in the oriental part of the Roman Empire (oval shields are shown too). The peculiar armour shown on the murals, almost knee-lenght hauberks with separate coifs, is also depicted in the Vergilius Vaticanus on fol. 73v, painted in Rome in the 5th century. The Deylami infantry is described by Procopius as not heavy, because of their speed and light equipment, and not light because of their ability to attack the Roman infantry with close-combat weapons such as swords, daggers, axes and spears. However, those spears were also thrown. And he says they are unconventional Persian infantry, as most of the Persian nation fought with bow or sling. Maille and cuirass (zereh and jaushan) are the usual alternatives, like the zaba and lorikion in the Strategikon. Putting them on top of each other I believe to be a eurocentric projection of the heavy, layered armour of medieval Western Europe. Iranian rulers, commanders and epic heroes are said to have put two armours on top of each other, but this is noted in the sources exactly because it was something notable. So I have to agree with Larry Dunn, there were two types of Persian infantry, the one skilled soldiers fighting as light skirmishers with both missile weapons and close combat weapons, the other a huge civilian levy of little tactical worth. All the Hellenistic style tactical specialists described in this article, slingers, spearmen, archers and heavy infantry, are not based on any sources.(talk)87.212.52.128 (talk) 09:19, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments

Much of the Gandharan sculpture can represent either infantry or cavalry troops - frankly it is impossible to say in the majority of cases which. There are several harnesses which have a knee length scale skirt that is slight at the sides - similar to the Dura soldier but with scale. It would be impossible to mount a horse in such a harness. The Dura soldier didn't have a waist length hauberk but a mid-thigh length hauberk that was also split at the sides for movement - side splits indicate infantry. I am unaware of any evidence of separate hauberks and skirts being worn.

What is your source for Persian cavalry tucking their skirts into their belts? I assume you mean fabric skirts, not armoured coats?

There are several depictions of cuirasses with maille armoured limbs poking out from under them in Iran and Sogdiana - however, there is no evidence at all that maille sleeves or bibs or skirts would be worn simply to cover the gaps left by a cuirass. In contrast, there is ample evidence of full maille hauberks being worn and it is hardly a leap of faith to assume that warriors simply wore their cuirasses on top of these hauberks rather than assuming cuts of maille which have no basis (that I am aware of) in the period.

I will of course, eat my words if you manage to provide some clear evidence that separate maille skirts and sleeves were worn with the torso being unprotected by maille and only a hauberk.

Naddum (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your well-reasoned objections. I agree, it would seem to be impossible to mount a horse with such a skirt, but nevertheless the horsemen on the Indo-Scythian coins of Azes II and on the Orlat warrior plaque form Kurgan Tepe seem to have succeeded in doing that, so perhaps we have to suspend our disbelieve. The wasp-waisted suits of armour with huge, bell-shaped skirts appearing in Central Asian art in the last century BCE are from the start shown on horsemen. Such a long skirt is still shown on the statue in Taq-i Bostan dating to the end of the Sasanian period. Wasp-waisted suits of armour with knee-length skirts also appear in the later Roman army (J.C.N. Coulston, ‘Later Roman Armour, 3rd–6th Centuries AD’, Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies I (1990), 142–6). One Roman soldier wearing such a suit of armour on the Arch of Galerius in Thessalonike is holding the reins of a horse as he is being inspired by the Emperor's speech, he is clearly intended to be seen as a horseman.

Dismounting horsemen fastening the skirts of the hauberk to their belts I found in the Warner and Warner Shahnama translation, second volume page 114, third volume page 128 and 345. It is also mentioned by Nicolle, The Armies of Islam, on the battle of Siffin, page 27. I wish I knew where he had found that, and what term the Arabs used for such a skirt. The Shahnama speaks of daman-e zereh, which is the skirt of the mail hauberk (but sometimes zereh or jaushan is simply used to denote “armour”). So a skirt of armour, not a fabric skirt because that would probably have been daman-e qaba.

About the 'maille poking out', I have good reason not to believe it was part of a complete hauberk worn underneath the other construction. Of hauberks made of small plates, the sources often mention separately the parts protecting neck, shoulders and upper arms (Persian girībān, Arabic taʿālīq as-suft, Greek strongylos and mēlon respectively), along with their separate construction (for instance in the Strategikon of Emperor Maurice, 1.2.20, or in Latham and W.F. Paterson 's Saracen Archery: An English Version and Exposition of a Mameluke Work on Archery (London, 1970) on page 26). Finds of remnants of armour made from a combination of plates and mail, along with a find of armour for the lower torso made of plates with added pieces of mail to cover the shoulders and loins, have been dated to late antiquity, (A.V. Simonenko, ‘Bewaffnung und Kriegswesen der Sarmaten und späten Skythen in nördlichen Schwartzmeergebiet’, Eurasia Antiqua VII (2001), 272–3 and pl. 48) and I am sure you know the Vendel splint cuirass with mail upper torso, and the more recent West and South Asian and East European plated mail cuirasses with the upper torso covered with mail only. So it seems that, ever since mail was introduced to the Middle East, the neck and shoulders of a 'Spangen/ Schuppen/ Plättchen/ Bechter' suit of armour were often made of mail construction, presumably because of its superior flexibility. There is nothing fanciful or far-fetched about that, the same phenomenon can be observed on for instance the helmets from the Middle East, equipped with a flexible screen of mail or lamellar armour to protect the rest of the head.

87.212.52.128 (talk) 07:42, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Adazan nobility section

This section uses many words, either interchangably or apparently as sub-ranks within the adazan nobility -- to the reader it's not at all clear which one is meant. Would someone with more background in this please clean it up?Larry Dunn 18:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

It must be said that our sources seem to use the terminology of Asbaran/Asvaran, Azadan, Suwaran, etc etc, just about as chaotic as this article, but if it is unable to organise the terminology the article is entirely superfluous. Suwar simply means horseman, so like cabalarius, chevalier and the like: a member of the lower nobility. Asbar (from asp horse) originally also meant horseman, but in the early Islamic period (aswar, probably going back to late Sasanian usage) it had acquired the meaning of champion, chief of the horsemen, i.e. a guardsman / an officer. Azadan seems to have referred to all the members of Sasanian society that did not have to work for a living. See Mohsen Zakeri Sasanid Soldiers. 217.63.243.52 (talk) 14:02, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Could someone please help me upload a picture of the Asawaran (Azatan)? For some reason the image is not encoding correctly, it's called "Sasanian_Caliban__Standard-Bearer.gif". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bagrationi (talk • contribs) 16:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Artillery

The identification of the panjikan as a type of ballista is a mistake, this was an archery technique to fire five arrows in quick succession (A. Boudot-Lamotte Contribution a l’étude de l’archerie musulmane (Damascus 1968) 148; E. Yar-Shater (ed.) The History of al-Tabari 11-38 (NY 1985-2007) 2.454; Th. Nöldeke Tabari. Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden (Leiden 1973) 233; B. Lewis (ed.&transl.) Islam. From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople. I. Politics and War (New York 1974) 215. Unless you have got some good objections, I propose to remove it. The assumption that the knowledge of ancient siege machinery had somehow disapeared from the Middle East, only to be relearned from the Romans, I believe to be a eurocentric bias. True, our sources never mention Parthian siege activity, but they conquered a vast empire, including many cities. Not knowing if there was artillery is not the same as knowing there was no artillery.Koechlyruestow (talk) 22:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

army + navy = military

Why is this article, called military, only about the army, with the navy in a separate article? 2603:8001:D300:A631:0:0:0:10D0 (talk) 01:24, 29 June 2022 (UTC)