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The Early Achaemenid list has "Persian, Median, Bactrian or similar horsemen" classed as Jav Cav. Acc'd Herodotus, the Persians and Medes had bow, spear and shield, and the Bactrians had bows and spears (cf also Duncan Head's The Achaemenid Persian Army). So why aren't they Elite Cav or Horse Bow?

In the latter 5th century the javelin seems to've replaced the bow as the primary distance weapon western and some eastern Iranian peoples, so Jav Cav is appropriate for the Later Achaemenid list. The Transitional one should perhaps allow a choice?

(And then bows become predominant again in Parthian times, presumably under steppe influence.)

Hey Andreas,

We had that discussion a month or more ago; at that point I did some cursory research to check and didn't find much support for prevalent bow use among the Achaemenid cavalry. It may be that I didn't look back far enough; what I found seemed to indicate a few bows mixed in rather than uniform equippage across the board.

I'll try to track down Herodotus, and see what Duncan has to say -- I wanted to write him an email regarding Scythed Chariots anyway, and see if he has any awareness of Nefiodkin's dissertation on the subject (that so far seems only to be available in St.Petersburg in Russian, which is no damn use to me).

Re Herodotus, VII:61-62 tells us that the Persians and Medes (by implication the infantry) in Xerxes' army had wicker shields*, bows, and spears; VII:64 tells us the Bactrians had spears and bows. VII:84 then tells us that the Persian cavalry was equipped like their foot, and VII:86 tells us the same regarding the Medes and Bactrians. Various other Iranian peoples and the Cissians (who may have been latter-day Kassites, or an Elamite group) are said to be similarly armed.

I have not checked any of the battle accounts for whether they have anything further to say about Persian cavalry armament.

* "Bucklers" acc'd at least one translation - but the Greek has aspidôn which hardly suggests small shields. Indeed, these are presumably the sparâ pavises in the case of the infantry; the horsemen's must presumably have been smaller.

Andreas Johansson wrote:Re Herodotus, VII:61-62 tells us that the Persians and Medes (by implication the infantry) in Xerxes' army had wicker shields*, bows, and spears; VII:64 tells us the Bactrians had spears and bows. VII:84 then tells us that the Persian cavalry was equipped like their foot, and VII:86 tells us the same regarding the Medes and Bactrians. Various other Iranian peoples and the Cissians (who may have been latter-day Kassites, or an Elamite group) are said to be similarly armed.

I have not checked any of the battle accounts for whether they have anything further to say about Persian cavalry armament.

* "Bucklers" acc'd at least one translation - but the Greek has aspidôn which hardly suggests small shields. Indeed, these are presumably the sparâ pavises in the case of the infantry; the horsemen's must presumably have been smaller.

Shielded horsemen are very exceptional before Pyrrhus/Tarentines (300 years later); off-hand I can't think of another example. I don't have a copy of Duncan Head's Ach.Pers.Army Montvert book and the stupid thing has been out of print for a decade and used copies start north of $100 ($150 to $300 on ABEbooks and amazon, which is all I've searched so far) which is a little dear for a used soft-cover. I'll keep trying to find a copy for a more reasonable price (anyone have one they'd sell?), but I suspect I'm going to have to try and see if Duncan will respond to an email on this.

The place to look for cheaper copies is http://www.bookfinder.com but currently they don't have a copy for much less than $100.

I know that shielded horsemen would be unusual for the time, and taken at face value Herodotus is saying they have the same shields as the infantry - are we to imagine cavalry with pavises? - but if we dismiss Herodotus outright there's precious little to build an army list on.

Anyway, the shields do not, as I understand it, affect classification, and even if Herodotus was wrong (or just expressed himself badly) about the shields, he might be right about the bows. There are Achaemenid horse archers in contemporary art, but of course it's not trivial to determine whether they Persians and not, say, Saka. I don't have the book at hand ATM, but I seem to recall that Duncan says that there's no secure pictorial evidence for the use of shields by Achaemenid cavalry.

ETA: Persian nobles as mounted archers also fits with the whole "to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth" thing. Darius claims at Behistun to be a good horseman and a good archer - not proof of anything, but suggestive.

Andreas Johansson wrote:The place to look for cheaper copies is http://www.bookfinder.com but currently they don't have a copy for much less than $100.

Bastidges. Putting their own wealth-accumulation ahead of the expansion of my knowledge base. Seems selfish to ME!

Andreas Johansson wrote: I know that shielded horsemen would be unusual for the time, and taken at face value Herodotus is saying they have the same shields as the infantry - are we to imagine cavalry with pavises? - but if we dismiss Herodotus outright there's precious little to build an army list on.

Right, it's a tough problem. And as you say (below), Duncan Head seems also dubious about the shields based upon lack of any pictorial evidence, even though that seems to be what Herodotus is saying.

Andreas Johansson wrote: Anyway, the shields do not, as I understand it, affect classification, and even if Herodotus was wrong (or just expressed himself badly) about the shields, he might be right about the bows.

Shields are not themselves a guarantee, but shields and spears (as well as bows) kind of are -- because if you equip a horseman with shields and spears and bows all three, then you're saying that those horsemen are expecting to fight (commonly and usually and effectively) in melee as well as at range (in a horsebow style). There are no guarantees, of course -- Lithuanian cavalry had bows but apparently only used them dismounted, so they are classed as Javelin Cavalry in spite of their bows.

And if the horsemen really had shields, and nobody else on a horse had shields for 300 years before or after them, then that really says something. Something that distinguishes them strongly vis-a-vis any of their contemporaries. Which doesn't help us much if (as it seems) their use of shields may be dubious, of course.

Spears or swords or other hand weapons in association with bows isn't enough to make anyone Elite Cavalry by itself -- almost any horsebow style fighter would have a hand weapon of some sort, if only to protect himself when he ran out of arrows, or to strike a heroic pose when taking a selfie on the battlefield, or to threaten washerwomen when sacking camps and stuff.

Andreas Johansson wrote: There are Achaemenid horse archers in contemporary art, but of course it's not trivial to determine whether they Persians and not, say, Saka.

Right. My earlier quick-and-dirty survey spotted the confusion -- and the current Ach.Pers. list allows for some of those. Just 0-1 stand, but the army is mostly foot and there are only 1-3 stands of Javelin Cavalry max anyway.

Further, if most of the Persian Cavalry in pictorial evidence do not have bows, then the proportions in the current list are reasonable: 1-3x Javelin Cavalry and 0-1x Horsebow. If you think that any Persian/Median/Bactrian cavalry fought with horse archery, just paint up the Horsebow stand appropriately for Persian/Median/Bactrians rather than as Saka/Skythians.

Andreas Johansson wrote:I don't have the book at hand ATM, but I seem to recall that Duncan says that there's no secure pictorial evidence for the use of shields by Achaemenid cavalry.

That reassures me -- shields on cavalry way back then would have been very surprising to me.

Now at home and at liberty to check my books ...

Duncan says there is one possible example of a depiction of a shielded Persian cavalryman, from Yeniceköy, but he feels the vaguely depicted object may be more likely a part of his clothing. More significantly, the equipment list of a Babylonian trooper by the name Gadal-Iama (ca 422 BC) includes not one but two shields, so clearly some cavalrymen possessed shields - but it doesn't necessarily follow they used them on horseback. Duncan cites Greek and Macedonian examples of cavalrymen picking up shields for dismounted action, and I believe there's also Italian examples.

Getting away a bit from the Achaemenids, Duncan does describe Skythian/Saka cavalry as routinely using shields during Achaemenid times. Concretely, he mentions a gold comb from the Solokha kurgan (early 4th century acc'd WP - but no citation given) with a rider with a slung shield as a possible parallel to the Yeniceköy relief, and archaeologically found shields from Gladkovshchina and Pazyryk (5th century BC for the latter). This certainly leaves Persian use of cavalry shields, if there was any, looking less surprising.

Regarding proportions, the pictorial evidence reproduced certainly gives the impression that most early Achaemenid cavalry did have bows. We're also told that "Herodotus' battle descriptions mention arrow and javelin fire", so a mix seems called for, but I'm unconvinced the present one is right.

FWIW, I also checked the old WRG book Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars by Richard Nelson. It follows Herodotus to the letter, showing Persians and Medes with spear, shield and bow, and Bactrians with spear and bow. It does, however, say that other sources suggest that the shield was not usually carried.

Andreas Johansson wrote: Getting away a bit from the Achaemenids, Duncan does describe Skythian/Saka cavalry as routinely using shields during Achaemenid times. Concretely, he mentions a gold comb from the Solokha kurgan (early 4th century acc'd WP - but no citation given) with a rider with a slung shield as a possible parallel to the Yeniceköy relief, and archaeologically found shields from Gladkovshchina and Pazyryk (5th century BC for the latter). This certainly leaves Persian use of cavalry shields, if there was any, looking less surprising.

I saw some stunning Skythian goldwork in the Hermitage Gold Room (St. Petersburg) around 2008 or 2010; I'll look through my pics and see if that's one of those. The famous comb with the rider fighting two men on foot that serves as the basis for a lot of the miniature gamer figs of Skythian foot was one of them. I remember shields on both footmen (shields of unusual shape and details), but I can't recall if the rider had one.

It occurs to me, though, that there are shields and there are shields. Shields used by horsebow as protection against enemy horsebow, small and designed not to interfere with bow use, don't automatically speak to a predilection towards melee. They may be used as part of a horsebowman's panoply and merely be an adjunct to optimizing survival in a horsebow shoot-and-bugger-off style of fighting. As compared to larger "I'm gonna fight you in melee" shields like most javelin cavalry started using in the third century BC, which tell a different story.

Not that either story is as clear as we would hope, of course. But we can say that big shields on horsemen speak to melee use, and small shields on horsemen with bows are likely designed not to get in the way of a primary role of a user of horsebow techniques.

Andreas Johansson wrote: Regarding proportions, the pictorial evidence reproduced certainly gives the impression that most early Achaemenid cavalry did have bows. We're also told that "Herodotus' battle descriptions mention arrow and javelin fire", so a mix seems called for, but I'm unconvinced the present one is right.

FWIW, I also checked the old WRG book Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars by Richard Nelson. It follows Herodotus to the letter, showing Persians and Medes with spear, shield and bow, and Bactrians with spear and bow. It does, however, say that other sources suggest that the shield was not usually carried.

I read over an online copy of Herodotus and found the section to which you were referring. It was interesting. A huge amount of detail on the infantry, with separate paragraphs for a dozen or twenty different cultures and their distinct weapons and stuff. And then the description of the cavalry that followed was quite cursory, and mostly said "cavalry of X were equipped like their foot" for three different groups of cavalry, with much less detail. (Except the one cool group that fight with knives and lassos, where he gave more detail.)

I'll read it over again later, but right at the moment one thought that occurs to me was that Herodotus in saying "like the foot" to an audience who had never seen cavalry fighting with shields might have mentioned it, if the cavalry had had shields. Whereas if he expected that his whole audience were fully comfortable with the idea that cavalry did not fight with shields, he could say "like the foot" and fully expect that his audience would understand that of course shields wouldn't be included, since nobody ever fought with shields on horses, they were only for infantry use.

I know, speculative, but there we are.

Andreas Johansson wrote: ETA: Persian nobles as mounted archers also fits with the whole "to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth" thing.

I thought that was a Sassanian saying? And if so, that's 600 years later and the culture that took over the region after several hundred years of Parthian (i.e. horsebow) dominance.

Andreas Johansson wrote: Darius claims at Behistun to be a good horseman and a good archer - not proof of anything, but suggestive.

Ya, suggestive.

David Kuijt wrote:

Andreas Johansson wrote: ETA: Persian nobles as mounted archers also fits with the whole "to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth" thing.

I thought that was a Sassanian saying?

It's in Herodotus (I:136).

Whether it was still current in Sassanid times I do not know.