Hey guys, too much of this parthian bashing joke is begining to smell like rotten fish (or relatives). It is difficult to understand military history and to make absolute (useful) comparisons; it certainly doesn't help much if crank remarks are made too often.<br>
<br>
To be serious I am tempted to say that the sassanians (sassanids) were simply better organized and that the hardware and tactics were basically the same of that of the parthians. What do you know about this? I haven't read yet the books that Sander has flagged. Any thoughts or conclusions?<br>
<br>
I am sure many things occurred over the very long time span of fighting between rome and its eastetrn neighbors. Evolutions certainly did occur. But Shapur 1 was in power only about 10-20 years after his father took power and I honestly tend to think that he did not really change the hardware or tactics that much (same heavy cavalry, same mounter archers, essentially a lousy infantry not significantly better than the parthian one to explain the big Shapur successes; if I am not wrong the sassanians even used elephants but much later than the Shapur 1 invasions).<br>
<br>
Let me put it this way. I get the feeling the mobile army reforns of gallienus were more significant that any changes in the sassanian army (many roman emperors were mobile army commanders, claudius, aurelian,...). while the sassanian army just got slightly better at doing what they always did in the field PLUS they learned to besiege (from roman prisioners? there goes my eurcocentric tendency again...).<br>
<br>
BUT PLEASE the PRO-parthian/sassanian people shouldn't jump to the conclusion that the roman cavalry changes were introduced to counter persia. Indeed I have the strong feeling the roman changes were introduced more to counter the many-theater threats of that terrible period: persia, goths AND the (above all?) the internal one (cival war). Indeed in the long run the need to have a mobile army close to the mobile emperor was, in my opinion, the most important reason the roman army changed to that after Constantine, not some generic cavalry threat on the distant eastern front. There is of course plenty of room for debate.<br>
<br>
Getting back to Shapur he had more political power and was by far more able to orchestrate things, even to the point of actually invading deeply roman territory with a complicated plan. The Parthians were politically incapable of doing so and basically only responded to roman aggression.<br>
<br>
But even with all the qualifiers and doubts I have, and you should have too, I hope you all acknowledge that Shapur was truely a great military organizer with real talent in turning the army around and giving it the aggressive punch. But of course the romans were not at their best being sapped by continuous cival wars and goths running around and even killing poor Decius. But lets not be too distracted in our simplifications not to note that Shapurs' talent was hereditary: his dad neutralized Alexander Severus' full scale invasion and had evidently already transformed the weak army of the rotten-parthian state into something significantly good enough to stop, if not humiliate, Alexander!<br>
<br>
Shapur later make great progress against rome when rome was weak and off balance, but the opposite is true too: the romans made best results when the parthians/sassanians were weak for similar reasons (internal threats and unrest and distant wars in the deep asian lands of persia all the way to india, and, I truely believe, from constant roman successful aggressions).<br>
<br>
Rome was over extended and that in my opinion is the single best explanation of her inability to conquer and HOLD persia. Apart from that ,a well led and balanced roman army with limited scope could almost do what it wanted. The problems arose when the romans never really had a well defined scope: too much propaganda and who-is-the-boss on the block ideology all fueled by alexander the great fantasys.<br>
<br>
p.s. I would not, if I were you, exagerate in down playing Crassus' or Antony's defeats by hands of the parthians and even forget other single legions getting wiped out here and there. If doesn't sound like the work of "nuns" and to insist too much interpreting those defeats as accidents is to miss out on what made the roman army strong and occasionaly weak.<br>
<p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=goffredo>goffredo</A> at: 3/15/03 6:00:49 pm<br></i>
