The Sassanids and other Eastern Cultures

[IMP GALLIENVS AVG]

Hello all, I recently purchased a silver drachm of Shapur I, the ruler of the Sassanids in the 3rd century A.D.(In fact, it could come tomorrow! I'll post a pic for you guys) As many of you probably know, Shapur was the man who captured Valerian, Emperor of Rome, and kept him for 10 years, using him as a footstool to mount his horse. Another interesting thing is, supposedly, the Romans paid a hefty ransom for Valerian, and Shapur took the ransom, kept Valerian, and made coins out of the silver antoninianii (so my coin could possibly be a direct piece from a ransom for Valerian!). I was wondering: do we know the armor of these Sassanid warriors? Did they have uniforms, artillery, etc.? I would also like to know the same questions about some other cultures around in the time of the Romans.

Thanks,
Andrew

[Artorius1960]

Hi, Andrew.

A good place to start for info about the Sassanids are the Osprey books. Rome's Enemies (3): Parthians and Sassanid Persians has some very good color plates that show details of Sassanid cavalry and infantry. There are also several b&w photos of artifacts and drawings that illustrate Sassanid soldiers from contemporary sources.

Osprey has a recent book out in its Elite series called Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224–642. I don't have it (yet), but it's likely to have a lot more detail and color plates on the Asavaran, which was the feudal cavalry of the Sassanid empire.

Montvert also published something on the Sassanid cavalry, but I don't know the exact title.

[hoplite14gr]

Sassanides started with good equipment for the cavalry.
Their good politics also provided them with allies like Arabs with light cavalry and camelry and Chionite-Efthalites stepes horse archers.
They compensated for theit lack of good infantry by using Armenians
By the time of Justininian they had lost the Armenians and their infantry except the royal guard archers had deteriorated.
Interesting is that Prokopios in the battle of Dara says that Persian bows were inferior to Roman.
The war with Herakios and civil strife made them easy pray to the Islamic Arabs.
Kind regards

[Felix]

The Sassanids had quite sophisticated siege techniques - see Ammianus' description of the siege of Amida. http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/s ... mianus.htm

[hoplite14gr]

Prokopios also wrote that their troops carry special wood sticks.
When combined they make bridges ans rivers are no obstacle to them.
Guess their military machine lika all others had its ups and downs.
Kind regards