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Paygan
The Paygān (also known as Paighan) were the conscript light infantry unit within the Sasanian army and formed the bulk of its infantry force. The Paygan were sometimes referred to as being used as "cannon fodder". During peacetime, the corps could have had police force roles. Recruitment The Paygan were a conscription force, recruited from the peasant population of the Sasanian Empire. According to the ''Chronicon Anonymum'', the vast majority (120,000) of Sasanian Emperor Khosrow I Anushirvan's army of 183,000 was made up of Paygan. Despite being referred to as cannon fodders, the Paygan were frequently used in sieges and served as pages for the Savaran cavalry. They were also tasked to guard baggage trains, encroachment missions, and the excavation of mines. These troops would generally have had the lowest morale of all troops in the Sasanian army and would cluster together for mutual protection. According to Arab historians, during the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah the Persian co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named after the Sasanian dynasty, House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived List of monarchs of Persia, Persian imperial dynasty. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).Norman A. Stillman ''The Jews of Arab Lands'' pp 22 Jewish Publication Society, 1979 International Congress of Byzantine Studies ''Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21–26 August 2006, Volumes 1–3'' pp 29. Ashgate Pub Co, 2006 The empire was founded by Ardashir I, an Iranian ruler who rose to po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sassanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named after the Sasanian dynasty, House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived List of monarchs of Persia, Persian imperial dynasty. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).Norman A. Stillman ''The Jews of Arab Lands'' pp 22 Jewish Publication Society, 1979 International Congress of Byzantine Studies ''Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21–26 August 2006, Volumes 1–3'' pp 29. Ashgate Pub Co, 2006 The empire was founded by Ardashir I, an Iranian ruler who rose to po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sasanian Army
The Sasanian army was the primary military body of the Sasanian armed forces, serving alongside the Sasanian navy. The birth of the army dates back to the rise of Ardashir I (r. 224–241), the founder of the Sasanian Empire, to the throne. Ardashir aimed at the revival of the Persian Empire, and to further this aim, he reformed the military by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and whose officers were separate from satraps, local princes and nobility. He restored the Achaemenid military organizations, retained the Parthian cavalry model, and employed new types of armour and siege warfare techniques. This was the beginning for a military system which served him and his successors for over 400 years, during which the Sasanian Empire was, along with the Roman Empire and later the East Roman Empire, one of the two superpowers of Late Antiquity in Western Eurasia. The Sasanian army protected ''Eranshahr'' ("the realm of Iran") from the East against the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, either freshly cut or dried as hay. Falx was a synonym but was later used to mean any of a number of tools that had a curved blade that was sharp on the inside edge such as a scythe. Since the beginning of the Iron Age hundreds of region-specific variants of the sickle have evolved, initially of iron and later steel. This great diversity of sickle types across many cultures can be divided into smooth or serrated blades, both of which can be used for cutting either green grass or mature cereals using slightly different techniques. The serrated blade that originated in prehistoric sickles still dominates in the reaping of grain and is even found in modern grain-harvesting machines and in some kitchen knives. History Pre-Neolithic The d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infantry Units And Formations Of The Sassanian Empire
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine infantry. Although disused in modern times, heavy infantry also commonly made up the bulk of many historic armies. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery have traditionally made up the core of the combat arms professions of various armies, with the infantry almost always comprising the largest portion of these forces. Etymology and terminology In English, use of the term ''infantry'' began about the 1570s, describing soldiers who march and fight on foot. The word derives from Middle French ''infanterie'', from older Italian (also Spanish) ''infanteria'' (foot soldiers too inexperienced for cavalry), from Latin '' īnfāns'' (without speech, newborn, foolish), from which English also gets ''infant''. The individual-soldier term ''infantryma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aswaran
The Aswārān (singular aswār), also spelled Asbārān and Savaran, was a cavalry force that formed the backbone of the Military of the Sasanian Empire, army of the Sasanian Empire. They were provided by the aristocracy, were heavily armored, and ranged from archers to cataphracts. Etymology The word comes from the Old Persian word ''asabāra'' (from ''asa''- and ''bar'', a frequently used Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid military technical term). The various other renderings of the word are following; Parthian language, Parthian ''asbār'', Middle Persian ''aspabārak'', New Persian, Classical Persian ''suwār'' (), ''uswār''/''iswār'' (), Modern Persian ''savār'' (). The Arabic word ''asāwira'' (), used to refer to Asawira, a certain faction of the Sasanian cavalry after the Muslim conquest, is a broken plural form of the Middle Persian ''aswār''. However, the word ''aswār'' only means "horseman" in Middle Persian literature, and it is only the late Arabic term that has a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cataphract
A cataphract was a form of armored heavy cavalryman that originated in Persia and was fielded in ancient warfare throughout Eurasia and Northern Africa. The English word derives from the Greek ' (plural: '), literally meaning "armored" or "completely enclosed" (the prefix ''kata-''/''cata-'' implying "intense" or "completely"). Historically, the cataphract was a very heavily armored horseman, with both the rider and mount almost completely covered in scale armor, and typically wielding a kontos or lance as his primary weapon. Cataphracts served as the elite cavalry force for most empires and nations that fielded them, primarily used for charges to break through opposing heavy cavalry and infantry formations. Chronicled by many historians from the earliest days of antiquity up until the High Middle Ages, they may have influenced the later European knights, through contact with the Eastern Roman Empire.Nell, Grant S. (1995) ''The Savaran: The Original Knights''. University of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persian War Elephants
War elephants were used in Iranian military history, most notably in Achaemenid, Seleucid and Sasanian periods. The elephants were Asian elephants, and were recruited from southern provinces of Iran and India but also possibly Syrian elephants from Syria and westernmost Iran. The men (excluding the driver) sat in a large tower from which troops would fight. The elephant itself would normally be armed with thin plate armour (the Sassanids used chain mail as well as thin plate armour) and would bear a large crenelated wooden ''howdah'' on its back. Persian war elephants were trained by their rider, called a mahout, who would also ride the elephant into battle. While on the move, the elephants required large paths to cut to accommodate their passage. Training elephants was a difficult task and their upkeep was expensive because of their high nutritional demands. History Under the Achaemenids Persians used war elephants at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. The battle raged be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Roman Army
In modern scholarship, the "late" period of the Roman army begins with the accession of the Emperor Diocletian in AD 284, and ends in 480 with the death of Julius Nepos, being roughly coterminous with the Dominate. During the period 395–476, the army of the Roman Empire's western half progressively disintegrated, while its counterpart in the East, known as the East Roman army (or the early Byzantine army) remained largely intact in size and structure until the reign of Justinian I (r. AD 527–565). The Imperial Roman army of the Principate (30 BC – 284 AD) underwent a significant transformation as a result of the chaotic 3rd century. Unlike the army of the Principate, the army of the 4th century was heavily dependent on conscription and its soldiers were paid much less than in the 2nd century. Barbarians from outside the empire probably supplied a much larger proportion of the late army's recruits than in the army of the 1st and 2nd centuries, but there is little evidenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spahbed
''Spāhbed'' (also spelled ''spahbod'' and ''spahbad'') is a Middle Persian title meaning "army chief" used chiefly in the Sasanian Empire. Originally there was a single ''spāhbed'', called the , who functioned as the generalissimo of the Sasanian army. From the time of Khosrow I ( 531–579) on, the office was split in four, with a ''spāhbed'' for each of the cardinal directions.Gyselen (2004) After the Muslim conquest of Persia, the ''spāhbed'' of the East managed to retain his authority over the inaccessible mountainous region of Tabaristan on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, where the title, often in its Islamic form ( fa, اسپهبذ; in ar, اصبهبذ ), survived as a regnal title until the Mongol conquests of the 13th century.Bosworth (1978), pp. 207–208 An equivalent title of Persian origin, '' ispahsālār or sipahsālār'', gained great currency across the Muslim world in the 10th–15th centuries. The title was also adopted by the Armenians ( hy, սպ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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