Terrifying facts and secrets about the immortal Persians
?Who are the immortal Persians
It is a name given by Herodotus to a special force of soldiers that fought for the Achaemenid Empire. This force played several roles such as the imperial guard and the standing army during the expansion of the Persian Empire and during the Greco-Persian wars. You may have heard while watching the legendary movie 300 that one of the Persian forces summoned by Xerxes I To fight the Greeks they were called immortals.
Herodotus describes the Immortals as a heavy infantry force that was under the command of General Hydarnes and always had a strength of ten thousand fighters.
He claimed that the name of the unit came from its habit of replacing any sick, seriously wounded or killed warrior with a new one immediately, thus maintaining the unit's population and cohesion, although many details related to it (including the original name) remain unknown due to the loss of many original historical documents. .
This particular unit was called "the Immortals" only in the sources based on Herodotus, and while there is evidence of their presence in Persia, they are not mentioned by this name and it is possible that Herodotus confused the name "Anochia" (companions) with "Anausha" (the Immortals). ). However, German researcher Rudiger Schmidt criticizes this hypothesis.
History of the Immortal Persians:
The Immortals played an important role in the campaign of Cyrus the Great against the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 547 BC, in the campaign of Cambyses against Egypt in 525 BC and in the campaign of Darius the Great against the minor border kingdoms of western India (western Punjab and Sindh, now in Pakistan), and Scythia in 520 BC and 513 BC.
The Immortals participated in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, and were among the Persian forces invading Greece in 479 BC under Mardonius.
immortals
Equipment of the Immortal Persians Army:
Herodotus describes their armament as follows:
Braided shields, short spears, great swords or daggers and bow and arrow, under their cloaks they wore coats with scaly shields, and the spear-balances of the common soldier were made of silver, the officers' spears were weighted with gold so that honorary ranks could be distinguished, and the regiment was followed by a caravan of covered wagons, camels and mules which Their equipment was transported, in addition to the slave girls and companions, to serve them. This convoy carried special supplies of food that was specially provided for them.
It is believed that the immortals wore Persian crowns on their heads, and its exact shape is not known, but some sources describe it as a cloth or felt hat that can be worn on the face to keep the wind and dust away in the arid Persian plains. detailed, earrings and gold jewellery, but it appears that these garments and accessories were worn only on ritual occasions.
Heritage:
The Sassanian army restored the title of "the immortals", and among the army units, the most famous of them was the Zaidan "Immortal" squad, exceeding ten thousand men, like their Achaemenid ancestors, and they differed in being cavalry, whose main task was to secure any breakthroughs and enter the battles in the decisive stages.
The title "Immortals" was reinstated twice during the Byzantine Empire, first as an elite heavy cavalry unit under John of Zemsky (969-976) and later by Nicephorus, chief minister of Emperor Michael VII (1071-1081), as the core of the new central field army, after Defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
Several centuries later, during the Napoleonic Wars, French soldiers referred to Napoleon's Imperial Guard as "The Immortals".
The modern Iranian army under the last shah included the all-volunteer Javidan Guard, also known as the "Immortals" after the ancient Persian Royal Guard.
The headquarters of the immortals was located in the Lausanne Barracks in Tehran, and by 1978 this special force included a brigade of 4,000-5,000 men, and it included the Chieftain Tank Battalion, after the fall of the imperial regime in 1979, this division was dissolved.
In popular culture:
Herodotus' record of two elite warriors - the Spartan hoplites and the immortals - facing each other in battle has inspired numerous battle quotations, especially with regard to the immortals.
Immortal Persians
In the 1962 film The Three Hundred Spartans, the immortals are shown wielding a spear and braided shield like the real immortals, but they appear dressed in black and other dark colours, as opposed to the historical image.
In Frank Miller's 1998 comic book 300 and its 2007 feature film adaptation, immortals appear in a highly fictionalized form at the Battle of Thrombill, where immortals appear as demons, wear metal samurai-like masks, and wield a pair of wakizashi-like swords.
In the History Channel documentary The Last Three Hundred Stand, the Immortals also appear as part of a reconstruction of the Battle of Thrombill. In this version, the crown the Immortals used to wear appears here as a black cloth mask that covers the entire face and is transparent enough to see through.
Source: websites