The Achaemenid Kings and their Satraps were constantly involved in organising campaigns either to expand their empire or to fight in its defence. In doing so they showed themslves to be highly organised and capable of thorough planning in mobilising vast and hetergoneous forces.
Preparation
In preparation for a campaign, the Persians would send heralds to each of the cities or towns to demand earth and water as a sign of submission. In this way they gained a feeling for the attitudes of the people and began to develop a network of supporters and spies. At the same time, requests were sent to the various parts of the empire for troops, provisions, ships and animals to be assembled or built.
Preparations could involve specialised tasks such as the bulding of seige engines as used against Miletus or the construction of specialised horse tranports ordered by Darius when planning the campaign against Greece.
The Persians were also prepared to undertake major engineering tasks. These included Cyrus diverting the river before his attack on Babylon, Darius organising the cutting of a canal to bypass the dangerous currents around Mt Athos and Xerxes bridging of the Hellespont.
Syllogoi
Once the necessary preparations were completed, which could take years, the troops would be directed to assemble at appropriate mustering points. These assembly or mustering points were called syllogoi by the Greeks. They were large plains with ample water supplies to provide for the large numbers of men and animals which may be camped for weeks or possibly months at a time.
Traditional mustering points included the plain east of Sardis, which was used during the Ionian revolt and Xerxes' invasion of Greece. Palestine was used as a mustering point for campaigns against Egypt while Susa, the Persian capital, was a mustering point for the Scythian campaign and for other campaigns in the eastern part of the empire.On Route
Herodotus (7:41) described Xerxes and the Persian army leaving Sardis en route to the Hellespont. In contrast to the ordered march formations of the elite Persian infantry and cavalry units, he describes the rest of the army following in a "miscellaneous mass". The lack of march disciple that allowed all the troops to be intermingled did not continue for long. After crossing the Hellespont and reaching Doriscus in Thrace, Xerxes began counting and organising his troops into separate divisions. Herodotus (7:60) describes the process as follows.
"The counting was done by first packing ten thousand men as close together as they could stand and drawing a circle around them on the ground; they were dismissed, and a fence, about navel-high, was contructed round the circle; finally other troops were marched into the area enclosed and dismissed in their turn, until the whole army had been counted. After counting, the army was reorganised in divisions according to nationality".Some historians suggest the Persians were characterised by lack of order and disciple en route but there is no real evidence to support this. Xerxes did however wait until he had reached the borders of the empire before organising his troops.
What is evident about the Persians is the amount of baggage they required.Baggage Train
The Persian baggage trains were noted for being particularly large. With the basic military supplies, servants, blacksmiths, armourers, servants and priests, they were no different from the other armies of the period. It was inclusion of large amounts of luxuries which characterised Persian armies. Which included ornate furniture, gold and silver baths, cups and bowls. The elite regiment of "Immortals were allowed to bring their women in covered carriages on campaign and even had their own personal food supplies, separate from the rest of the army.
Tents full of gold and silver furniture and substantial treasuries were captured after several recorded battles. These large treasuries were used to buy the support of the various nations when other means of persuasion had failed.
The baggage itself was carried in wagons pulled by oxen and mules, and on the backs of by pack animals such as donkeys and camels.
Why use force when sublety will do?
The Persians, with their vast resources of manpower, did not rely solely on force or threat to subdue their enemies. Even with 60,000 men, seiges could take several months to complete and as with Naxos, might still end in failure. So even before the troops had assembled, the Persian agents were working within the cities to bribe or entice revolt or betrayal. When Datis and Artaphernes beseiged Eretria the city was betrayed after only a week. The signal from the polished shield at Marathon was believed to indicate that the agents at Athens were ready to betray the city. During the Persian seige of the town of Potidaea, Artabazus communicated with his agent, Timoxenus, inside the town by messages that were attached to arrows shot into a predetermined area. Unfortunately an arrow accidently hit a defender and the message was discovered.
Seige Warfare
Persians used various engineering and assault techniques when besieging a city.
A direct assault might be carried out only with ladders, but other seiges required much more preparation. These could include simple methods such as the building of earth ramparts against a wall until it reached a sufficent height or more skilled operations such as under mining of the outer walls. In this case, teams of diggers would tunnel under the walls and use timber supports while the digging was in progress. When enough earth and rock had been removed the timber framework was set on fire and the walls would collapse under their own weight.
More specialised seige engines were also used on occasions. The use and knowledge of rams and towers were learnt from people such as Assyrians.
The techniques used throughout the seige would depend on factors such as size of the army, the position and size of the city and its walls and also the features of the surrounding area such as available timber, water and the soil the city was built on.
Return to Mark's Achaemenid Persian Page