A close-up view of the relief of a Persian Guard at Persepolis, Shiraz, Iran.

A close-up view of the relief of a Persian Guard at Persepolis, Shiraz, Iran. The Achaemenid Empire of Persia (550-330 BC) had an elite corps of heavy infantry that was so effective, it helped them to conquer much of the known world. These troops also served as the imperial guard. We have beautiful depictions of them from the walls of the Achaemenid capital city of Susa, Iran, but unfortunately, our historical documentation about them comes from the Persians' enemies not really an unbiased source. Chief among the chroniclers of the Persian Immortals is the Greek historian?Herodotus?(484-425).?He is the source of their name, in fact, and it may be a mistranslation. Many scholars believe that the actual Persian name for this imperial guard was?anusiya, meaning "companions," rather than?anausa, or "non-dying." Herodotus also informs us that the Immortals were maintained at a troop strength of exactly 10,000 at all times.?If an infantryman was killed, sick, or wounded, a reservist would immediately be called up to take his place.?This gave the illusion that they were truly immortal, and could not be injured or slain.?We do not have any independent confirmation that Herodotus's information on this is accurate; nevertheless, the elite corps is often referred to as the "Ten Thousand Immortals" to this day. The Immortals were armed with short stabbing spears, bows and arrows, and swords.?They wore fish scale armor covered by robes, and a headdress often called a tiara that reportedly could be used to shield face from wind-driven sand or dust.?Their shields were woven out of wicker.?Achaemenid artwork shows the Immortals decked out in gold jewelry and hoop earrings, and Herodotus asserts that they wore their bling into battle. The Immortals came from elite, aristocratic families. The top 1,000 had gold pomegranates on the ends of their spears, designating them as officers and as the king's personal bodyguard. The remaining 9,000 had silver pomegranates. As the best of the best in the Persian army, the Immortals received certain perks. While on the campaign, they had a supply train of mule-drawn carts and camels that brought along special foods reserved only for them. The mule train also brought along their concubines and servants to tend to them. Like most things in the Achaemenid Empire, the Immortals were equal opportunity at least for elites from other ethnic groups. Although the majority of the members were Persian, the corps also included aristocratic men from the previously-conquered Elamite and Median Empires. Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achaemenid Empire, seems to have originated the idea of having an elite corps of imperial guards. He used them as heavy infantry in his campaigns to conquer Medes, Lydians and even Babylonians. With his last victory over the new Babylonian Empire, at the Battle of Opis in 539 BC, Cyrus was able to name himself "king of the four corners of the world" thanks in part to the efforts of his Immortals. In 525 BC, Cyrus's son Cambyses II defeated Egyptian Pharaoh Psamtik III's army at the Battle of Pelusium, extending Persian control across Egypt. Again, Immortals likely served as the shock troops; they were so feared after their campaign against Babylon that Phoenicians, the Cypriots, and Arabs of Judea and Sinai Peninsula all decided to ally themselves with Persians rather than fighting them. This left door to Egypt wide open, in a manner of speaking, and Cambyses took full advantage of it.

? Kallie Szczepanski

The third Achaemenid emperor, Darius the Great, likewise deployed the Immortals in his conquests of Sindh and parts of the Punjab (now in Pakistan). This expansion gave the Persians access to the rich trading routes through India, as well as the gold and other wealth of that land. At that time, the Iranian and Indian languages were probably still similar enough to be mutually intelligible, and the Persians took advantage of this to employ Indian troops in their fights against the Greeks. Darius also fought the fierce, nomadic Scythian people, whom he defeated in 513 BC. He would likely have kept a guard of Immortals for his own protection, but cavalry would have been much more effective than heavy infantry against a highly mobile foe like the Scythians. It is most difficult to evaluate Greek sources when they recount battles between the Immortals and Greek armies. The ancient historians make no attempt to be unbiased in their descriptions. According to the Greeks, the Immortals and the other Persian soldiers were vain, effeminate, and not very effective compared with their Greek counterparts. If that is the case, however, it is difficult to see how the Persians defeated the Greeks in numerous battles and held on to so much land adjacent to Greek territory. It is a shame that we do not have Persian sources to balance the Greek point of view. In any case, the story of the Persian Immortals may have been distorted over time, but it is obvious even at this distance in time and space that they were a fighting force to be reckoned with.

: Achaemenid Limestone Head of a Persian guard (486–465 BC), from Persepolis - Iran

(54 × 62 × 12cm) - MET Museum

The Persian Empire Under Darius The Great (549-485 BC).

Darius I?(550-486 BC), commonly known as?Darius the Great, was a? Persian ruler?who served as the third?King of Kings?of the? Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BC, until his death in 486 BC. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of? Western Asia, parts of the Balkans? (Thrace–Macedonia?and?Paeonia) and the?Caucasus, most of the?Black Sea's coastal regions,?Central Asia, Indus Valley?in the far east and portions of?North Africa?and? Northeast Africa?including?Egypt? (Mudraya), eastern?Libya and coastal?Sudan. Darius is mentioned in the books of?Haggai,?Zechariah, and?Ezra–Nehemiah?of the?Hebrew Bible?(the?Christian?Old Testament). Darius is noted above all for having regularized Persian administration of their empire, and thus putting it on a firmer footing. Cyrus and Cambyses had left the empire as a somewhat loose federation of self-governing satrapies, subject to irregular tribute and relying largely on pre-existing institutions and personnel. Unsurprisingly, the empire had almost fallen apart after Cambyses’ death. Darius had virtually to reconquer the satrapies; he then decided to weld them together into a strong, integrated empire. His first task was to create a centralized?standing army?which was answerable to the king alone. He raised this in Iran, and at its core was a powerful elite corps of 10,000 Persian (and probably Mede) troops, the famous “Immortals”. These came under the king’s direct orders, and functioned as a royal guard. In terms of?provincial administration, Darius divided the empire into twenty satrapies. The governors (satraps) were appointed directly by the king, and were mostly Persian nobles or members of the royal house. The satrapies were subdivided into smaller administrative units, with their own governors either nominated by the central government or by the satraps. Each satrapy had to pay a fixed annual tribute to the central treasury. The amount of tribute was set by a commission appointed by Darius, who visited the satrapies to determine the revenues of each district. The system which Darius created was full of checks and balances, to prevent too much power concentrating in the hands of the satraps. Roving inspectors. the “eyes and ears of the king”, who reported directly to the king, visited each satrapy on a regular basis, to see that all was in order. Darius improved the network of roads and way-stations throughout the empire, the better to extent his control over his far-flung territories. A system of government couriers carried messages speedily from his capital (or wherever he happened to be) to provincial officials. These measures of course?stimulated long-distance trade, and to facilitate this Darius introduced a new silver coinage. He built and upgraded canals and?underground waterways, and introduced some standardization to weights and measures. He also built a new?capital?at Persepolis, with Ecbatana, in central Iran, serving as the summer capital. He chose Susa, however, to be the administrative seat of power, because of its accessibility and strategic location in relation to the rest of the empire. Like Cyrus and Cambyses before him, Darius exercise toleration of the varied beliefs of his subjects. Indeed he patronized cults and temples other than his own; most famously he funded the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. By these measures, Darius placed the empire on foundations that would last for nearly two centuries. ? A map from the Shepherd atlas (1923) from the Perry-Castaneda Collection.