Achaemenid Persian Army

[Justin Taylor]

Clever Greeks. I am sure that would come up and be demonstrated in an historical scenario.

But of course most wargames games are played to points values where the players get to pick their own armies. There I think the Greek solution is to max out on the skirmishers and try to hurt the Persian cavalry with shooting.

[Duncan Head]

Someone is bound to mention Marathon: this battle actually had no cavalry present; they were still on Euboea ....

That's one theory - Marathon's full of them 

"The question arises, Does the south frieze show the battle of Marathon, Athens' greatest moment of glory? Or does the presence of horses preclude that, and are we looking at the battle of Plataia instead, as is sometimes argued? There is nothing in Herodotos about the Persians not using their cavalry, and Pausanias (1.32.4) records an ancient tradition that every night, a ghost battle could be heard at Marathon, which included the sound of horses. The theory that the Athenians attacked the Persians at Marathon after the bulk of their cavalry had been shipped off to Phaleron is a modern construct based on Suda, s.v. choris hippeis (without cavalry)."

from Olga Palagia's article at http://www.academia.edu/3432846/Interpretations_of_two_Athenian_friezes_the_temple_on_the_Ilissos_and_the_temple_of_Athena_Nike

[Patrick Waterson]

The absence of Persian cavalry in the Suda is supported by the absence of mention of Persian cavalry at Marathon in Herodotus.  In essence, the theories boil down to a) the Persian cavalry had not been brought yet; b) it had been brought but had then been re-embarked (curious as Marathon was selected on account of its suitability for cavalry, so where else would they be going?) and c) it was present but took no effective part in the action (again curious).  Of these, I find a) least difficult to explain and requiring no special pleading.

We also have the fact that the Persian force landed at Marathon - and waited.  Waited for what?  The most reasonable assumption seems to be that they were waiting for the Persian leaders and the cavalry.  Herodotus focusses on Hippias and twice mentions him 'leading' [kategeeto] the Marathon force.  Kathegeomai can mean to lead or to guide (among other things), but here, with the dative, it means 'lead', at least in the opinion of Enoch Powell, whose Greek was significantly better than mine.

Pausanias' tale and the monument painting are reconcilable with the Suda account: the horses present at Marathon did not belong to the Persian cavalry, but would have been baggage animals and officers' mounts (cf. Xenophon Anabasis III.3.19).  Hippias is mentioned by Herodotus (twice) as being in charge - Datis and Artaphernes are not mentioned at all at Marathon.  This adds credibility to the Suda account as the cavalry could be expected to be with the Persian leaders, having been disembarked to loot Eretria (VI.101) and no mention being made of their re-embarking (although Herodotus conscientiously records their initial embarkation in VI.95).  Datis is not mentioned until VI.118, when he is 'meanwhile' [hama = at the same time] making his way back to Asia and stops to return a golden image of Apollo to Delos.  Herodotus' inclusion of 'hama' suggests this activity was in parallel with, but independent of, Hippias taking the Marathon contingent back to Asia after 'resting on their oars' at Phalerum.

All of this points to 1) the Persian cavalry - and leaders - being on Euboea when Marathon was fought, and 2) Hippias being in charge of a cavalry-less force at Marathon.

[Duncan Head]

Herodotus focusses on Hippias and twice mentions him 'leading' [kategeeto] the Marathon force.  Kathegeomai can mean to lead or to guide (among other things), but here, with the dative, it means 'lead', at least in the opinion of Enoch Powell, whose Greek was significantly better than mine.

Though not in the opinion of A D Godley, author of the translation used at Perseus, who translates it as "guided".

No ancient writer seems to have picked up on the idea of Hippias being in charge, either - it was a commonplace that Datis was the commander at Marathon (according to Plato, Strabo, Pausanias, Plutarch, Nepos, Ktesias - not all equally reliable, I know).

The cavalry I remain agnostic about.

[Patrick Waterson]

Clever Greeks. I am sure that would come up and be demonstrated in an historical scenario.

But of course most wargames games are played to points values where the players get to pick their own armies. There I think the Greek solution is to max out on the skirmishers and try to hurt the Persian cavalry with shooting.

Given that they will probably be unable to pick suitable terrain, yes.  A screen of skirmishers backed by a line of hoplites is much less easy for Persian cavalry to deal with, especially if both sides' armies stretch from table edge to table edge with no scope for outflanking.

Historically, the Greek rule of thumb (invoked by Herodotus when attempting to assess Persian numbers at Thermopylae) was one light infantryman to one hoplite.  Most of these were light javelinmen; slingers were rare and archers, if anything, even rarer, although Athens made a point of maintaining a modest force of archers.  In an action prior to Plataea, the Persian cavalry caught the Megarians on open ground and were giving them much trouble when a picked Athenian contingent including archers came to the rescue, after which the Persian cavalry commander, Masistius, got an arrow in his horse's flank (from the Greek archers or a very poor shot among the Persians) and was thrown, following which the Greeks killed him.  The Persian cavalry then, after an unsuccessful attempt to recover the body, retired to camp (Herodotus IX.21-23).

No ancient writer seems to have picked up on the idea of Hippias being in charge, either - it was a commonplace that Datis was the commander at Marathon (according to Plato, Strabo, Pausanias, Plutarch, Nepos, Ktesias - not all equally reliable, I know).

Even Polyaenus has Datis and Artaphernes in charge, and with no less than 300,000 men.  Herodotus however is very particular in the way he switches to Hippias as being in charge (Godley's thinking does not explain the surprising omission of Datis or why Hippias should remain in the spotlight after the landing) and refers to Datis making his way back to Asia 'hama', at the same time as, Hippias doing so - a word which Godley curiously omits from his translation.  Put it back in and it makes sense in the context of Hippias being in charge at Marathon - sans cavalry - while Datis, Artaphernes and the cavalry remain at Eretria.

The attempt to sail directly to Athens following the defeat and the alleged showing of a shield to the fleet also point towards Hippias being in charge - the thinking behind the improvised descent upon Athens seems more Greek than Persian, and shield signalling needs the sender and recipient to understand a common protocol, which would have to be Athenian.  One could argue that Hippias could have suggested a descent upon Athens to his Persian masters, or that he could interpret the shield signals for them, but I have yet to meet a Persian who would have the quick thinking to react to a defeat at Marathon by sailing to try a surprise directly upon Athens.

However I shall show respect to agnosticism. 

[Justin Taylor]

Given that they will probably be unable to pick suitable terrain, yes.  A screen of skirmishers backed by a line of hoplites is much less easy for Persian cavalry to deal with, especially if both sides' armies stretch from table edge to table edge with no scope for outflanking.

I am afraid that is not an option in TDIC as both sides cannot deploy within 20 of the table sides - in an effort to reduce the 'fighting in a boxing ring' that a wargames battlefield is. So to protect their flanks, players must either use terrain or move troops to protect them.

[Patrick Waterson]

I think the historical Greeks would have avoided TDIC - for that matter they would have avoided Armati, FoG, DBM(M), etc. and even WRG 6th - and stayed with history.  They would have shared your thoughts on points value and terrain. 

However, given that players have to use rules and the tabletop (full re-enactment not being a realistic option), the Greeks could try a variant of Alexander the Great's system: forget about trying to match the enemy frontage, just draw up in two lines (forward and rear) with a space between them roughly equivalent to a charge move.  Use skirmishers to form the sides of the 'rectangle' with hoplites forming front and rear.  Keep any archers/slingers as a mobile reserve to go where the Persian cavalry goes if it tries to harass the front or rear.  Keep any cavalry as a last-ditch counterattack force, following the army at a distance (to deter attacks on the rear).

How this would theoretically work is that the Persian cavalry tries to charge the flank, consisting of skirmishers; the skirmishers run, the Persians follow and the appropriate frontage of second-line hoplites charges and sandwiches them.  If the Greek cavalry can come up and seal the escape route/ride down any escapees, so much the better.  (Alex used a different system with his cavalry covering the flanks and light troops supporting the 'corners', but his cavalry was better and more numerous than anything the Greeks could field.)

Whether this would actually work in TDIC is something the designer can best judge.

[Justin Taylor]

Ah perhaps they should have set up a staff college to game through their battle options, although given the difficulties in getting city states to co-operate thats probably a non-starter.

On the Persian side, their best option is to bribe the Greeks.

Yes I think the plan to get the the phalanx into combat with the Persian infantry and hold off the Persian cavalry is the best one. Helped no doubt by the inability of the Persian cavalry to beat the Greek hoplites frontally, even if they are not in phalanx. So we are in agreement.

[Patrick Waterson]

Concur.

At Mycale (fought on the coast of Asia Minor on the afternoon of the same day as Plataea) the Persians seem not to have had cavalry, but to have tucked themselves behind a screen of shields and held on as long as possible.  They were defeated - after a struggle at the line of shields - by half the Greek army, the other half going on what we might term a 'flank march' (although they were merely prolonging the front of the army, they had to get through difficult terrain) and arriving when the fun was mostly over.

The core of the Persian force at Mycale was a 60,000-man contingent that Xerxes did not take with him into Greece, but left to guard the Asia Minor coast.  These, reinforced or encumbered by the non-Phoenician crews of what was left of the Persian fleet (primarily Asia Minor Greeks), pulled the ships onto shore and built a barricade around them.  They then took post next to the barricade, presumably linking it to their camp.  Leotychides the Spartan, commanding the Greek fleet, sailed close inshore and had a few words with the Ionians, which caused the non-Greek-speaking Persians to regard their Ionian subjects with suspicion, disarming some and posting others elsewhere.  Leotychides then landed his force, put it in order of battle, and advanced.  The local geography (as the Persians were probably counting on) ensured that only half the Greek army could make contact; the rest had to struggle across hills and a narrow river, and only reached the fighting during the final stages of the battle.

Conclusion: Persian infantry just could not match Greek hoplites, only their shield-wall (or shield-barrier) conferring a temporary near-parity, and once that was down it was all over bar the stabbing.

On the Persian side, their best option is to bribe the Greeks.

Could be worth a try over the wargames table: "Concede this battle and I'll buy you a drink!"

[Andreas Johansson]

Could be worth a try over the wargames table: "Concede this battle and I'll buy you a drink!"

I think that might've worked better back when most of my wargaming friends were still university students.

In game terms, this suggests a counter-stratagem: pay a proportion of your army points (representing, loosely, resources) to make your officers less susceptible to bribery (or, to put it more cynically, bribe them first yourself).

[Patrick Waterson]

There was another side to this aspect of warfare, somewhat closer to home, as seen in Plutarch's Life of Eumenes 13.4-6:

"And now, as they advanced into the interior of the country, Peucestas, who was a friend of Eumenes, met them with the other satraps, and they joined their forces, so that the number of their men and the splendour of their equipment raised the spirits of the Macedonians. [5] But the leaders themselves had been made unmanageable by their exercise of power, and effeminate by their mode of life, after the death of Alexander, and they brought into collision spirits that were tyrannical and fed on barbaric arrogance, so that they were harsh towards one another and hard to reconcile. Moreover, by flattering the Macedonian soldiery extravagantly and lavishing money upon them for banquets and sacrifices, in a short time they made the camp a hostelry of festal prodigality, and the army a mob to be cajoled into the election of its generals, as in a democracy. [6] Eumenes, however, perceiving that, while they despised one another, they feared him and were on the watch for an opportunity to kill him, pretended to be in need of money, and got together many talents by borrowing from those who hated him most, in order that they might put confidence in him and refrain from killing him out of regard for the money they had lent him. The consequence was that the wealth of others was his body-guard, and that, whereas men generally preserve their lives by giving, he alone won safety by receiving."

Life insurance ... 

[dwkay57]

Having just caught up with this thread again, I'm surprised that the Persians are getting a really bad press. Whilst fully accepting the hoplite style of fighting and equipment (although most reference books suggest the Persians wore metal armour under their tunics) was more effective, but was the difference that great?

Not being a classical scholar (I failed the 11+), I rely on various reference books where I have to assume the authors have done their homework. Given that their write ups are similar, I guess they must all be working on the same evidence, some of which earlier posts have utilised. At the 3 main battles of this era - Marathon, Plataea and Mycale (Thermopylai was probably a special case) - the write ups indicate that the Greeks did win but the early stages of the battles seemed to be  a winning draw and it was only as the number of their casualties mounted that the Persians broke. Do we have any battle reports from the Persian side to compare to?

Also the Persian empire at this time was quite big in terms of area, with a population of about 16million, and had itself had been created by destroying some pretty aggressive predecessor states. Prior to adventures in Greece, the Persian army appears to have been fairly active as far afield as Egypt, Armenia and the border with India either putting down internal rebellions or extending the empire. May be their opponents were even worse, but they must have had something going for them to get that far and that big.

I can accept that a considerable chunk of the Persian army could be considered as "untrained crud", but was this really the case for the all their troops, especially the core units which formed the King of Kings standing army, if he had such a thing?

[Patrick Waterson]

Yes, he did, and all native Persian troops, not just the 10,000-strong 'Immortals' and 1,000-strong bodyguard of relatives who formed the ruler's elite, were noted for their bravery on the battlefield, as befitted a conquering nation.  And no, we do not have battle reports from the Persian side: they do not seem at this point in history to have been a particularly literary nation, so unless a royal archive full of well-preserved hides turns up we may be out of luck in this respect.

The Persians are not getting a bad press, just an accurate one, or as accurate as I can get.  Thermopylae was a case where Xerxes, with an estimated 2.5 million combatants against perhaps 7,000 Greeks, thought that even if the Greek tactical system had something going for it (a point he was unwilling to concede, according to Herodotus, who depicts him as being fixated on bravery and numbers as the only things that matter in war) his army would simply roll over them and wipe them out (or take them alive, an objective he abandoned after the first humiliating repulse).  Big mistake.  The Greek weaponry and tactical system made a massive difference - one that the Persian army, for all of its showers of arrows darkening the sun, was unable to overcome.

However even if we write off Thermopylae as a 'special case' (what was special about it?) there is Plataea.  This pitted Spartans (again) against native Persians (again) including the Immortals (again) and the Persians fought with great courage but lost hands down against different - and superior - infantry armament and technique.  Once the Persians were seen to be fleeing the subject nations all followed suit.

The problem for the Persians (as opposed to their less enthusiastic allies) was that they themselves were good, but Greeks were better.  The solution was to get troops comparable to the Greeks, and Xerxes and Mardonius had gone some way to doing this by enlisting the Thebans and other Greek peoples who found themselves on the wrong side of Greek geography.  At Plataea, the Thebans fought long and hard, keeping the Athenians out of the fight between the Spartans and the Persians.  However it was to be almost another century before the Persians actively enlisted Greeks to form the cutting edge of their forces.

... the early stages of the battles seemed to be  a winning draw and it was only as the number of their casualties mounted that the Persians broke.

'Winning draw' may be too optimistic a term for 'the rot setting in'.    Ar Plataea and Mycale the Persians were tucked into self-created improvised defences (rather more thorough at Mycale) and while these defences held the fighting was more even - but not so 'even' as to cause the Greeks to fail to breach the defences (which were basically a wall of large wicker shields, whose resistance to punishment was not unlimited).  Once the Greeks were through the shield-fence, the fighting was totally one-sided.

At Plataea the Persians fought on with what seems to have been total disregard for casualties until Mardonius himself fell, whereupon they cracked.  Loss of a commander always seems to have had a devastating effect on Biblical-style armies (of which the Persian was the last), so much so that Alexander the Great would attempt to turn it into a standard procedure for winning battles against them.

Marathon is, if anything, the odd man out: the Persians arrived after defeating the Greeks of Asia Minor (Ionian Revolt 499-493 BC), so felt the Greeks of mainland Greece would be no bother at all.  They landed on Euboea, took Ertetria and sent on Hippias (a deposed Athenian tyrant) with a contingent of troops (but apparently no cavalry) to establish a beachead/camp at Marathon, presumably thinking to bring in the rest of their forces later when they had finished subduing (or rather looting) Euboea.  The Athenians (and Plataeans) struck first, after much nervous debate, and in perhaps the closest battle of the series managed to crush the Persian wings but were unable to hold the Persian centre, where the native Persians fought against a reduced-depth Athenian line.  (They made up for this by catching the Persian centre in a nutcracker between their victorious wings.)

One point that emerges from Marathon is that the Greek system seems to have required a minimum depth in order to be successful against Persians - whether to provide impetus or prevent the ranks from being interpenetrated, or for any other reason - and the reduced depth Athenian centre fell short of this.  One may note that Xenophon's 'Ten Thousand' mercenaries in service to Cyrus the Younger deployed four deep when giving a demonstration at Tarsus, but appear to have reverted to the customary eight deep for a real battle.

After the 480-460 war against the Greeks, the Persians studiously avoided ever taking them on again until Cyrus hired the 'Ten Thousand' to support his bid for the throne.  After that, Persian monarchs took care to hire Greeks as the cutting edge of their armies (particularly when attempting the reconquest of Egypt) and also - this in itself is revealing - Greek generals.  To an extent they had little choice in the latter because cities loaned out mercenary contingents with a commanding general as a job lot, but by the time Darius III was facing Alexander Greek generals were increasingly being placed in overall command of Persian armies.

[dwkay57]

Aha, that could explain why all the Persian armies I've seen on the tabletop have been Sassanids and not Achaemenids (i.e. they have a justified bad press). I think the summary reads: whilst Persians of this period were OKish in terms of morale and skill their style of fighting was inferior to the hoplite style (irrespective of leadership talent which may also have had an impact). The question now is do I reflect this in my rules?

Without boring with the maths, a 600 man hoplite unit out scores (based on the middle 50% of throws) both an 800 man all spear unit (the Immortals) and an 800 man 1/4 spear 3/4 bow unit (the other Persian line infantry) until they get down to 25% strength when it is equal (the 800 man units having more men left at that point and a thin line of hoplites being no better than other spearmen). These scores are solely based the size of formation and weapon fighting style and take no account of training, weapon skill or morale. That tends suggest I might have got that bit right.

Perhaps the bit I've got wrong is the morale rating. Up till now I've been treating the Immortals as having the same skill / morale level as the top Spartans and the Persian Line infantry as being the same as the best of the other hoplites. That may have been over-rating them. By moving them down a category it would have a very minor reduction in their weapon skill bonus but more importantly would make them rout from melee after fewer "defeats" (i.e. received more melee casualties than inflicted) and also cause them to be more likely to pull back from melee as casualties mount. This may reflect more accurately the initial tough fighting and then the sudden breaks.

I'll ponder on the changes and give it a try.

[Patrick Waterson]

If the morale rating evaluates a combination of skill and morale (i.e. there is no separate skill rating or 'weapon factor') then yes, this would be the way to do it.  While it may seem odd having Immortals with less than top morale, if 'morale' subsumes hardware and technique then the difference needs to be there.

By moving them down a category it would have a very minor reduction in their weapon skill bonus but more importantly would make them rout from melee after fewer "defeats" (i.e. received more melee casualties than inflicted) and also cause them to be more likely to pull back from melee as casualties mount. This may reflect more accurately the initial tough fighting and then the sudden breaks.

Good thinking.