Free The First Clash by Jim Lacey Page B

enemy with javelins and arrows.… I cut their throats like sheep.… My prancing steeds, trained to harness, plunged into their wellingblood as into a river; the wheels of my battle chariot were bespattered with blood and filth. I filled the plain with the corpses of their warriors like herbage.… As to the lords of the Chaldeans, panic from my onslaught overwhelmed them like a demon. They abandoned their tents and fled for their lives, crushing the corpses of their troop as they went.… In their terror they passed scalding urine and voided their excrement into their chariots. Attack by foot soldiers, using mines, breaches as well as sapper work. I drove out of them 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered them booty. Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. 3
    When Cyrus began his campaigns of conquests, he did not have anything approaching the financial or material resources required to build a professional organized force along the Assyrian model. Rather, he had the
kara
, which loosely translated meant the warriors of his tribe, his friends, and any other warriors his kin were able to gather. However, soon after Persia absorbed the Median Empire, Cyrus immediately reorganized the
kara
along the lines of the professional Median army (called the
spada
). By integrating the Persian
kara
into the Median
spada
and adopting most of the Medes’ battle methods, the Persians became the inheritors of all the Assyrians had learned of warfare.
    Cyrus’s new
spada
consisted of cavalry, horse archers, foot archers, and infantry. This appears to be the same organization that the Median king Cyaxares had copied from the Assyrians, who were the first to organize regiments based on their specific arms. 4 Moreover, by taking advantage of Assyria’s experience and knowledge in terms of how to take a fortified city, the Persians built and maintained a superb siege train for use in any prolonged campaign. Although not mentioned in Herodotus’s account, this siege expertise and technology was instrumental in crushing the Ionian revolt, as it made short work of the Ionian walls. This army sufficed to conquer a sprawling empire, but after having seen firsthand the combat power of the Greek phalanx, no later Persian army was complete without a formidable core of Greek mercenaries.
    For victory in battle, the Persians relied on archery, from both foot archers and those on horseback, and their excellent cavalry. The infantry was less important and generally found its most worthwhile employmentin finishing off an enemy force already decimated by the archers and scattered by the cavalry. As their approach to war did not require it, the Persians never built a truly effective heavy infantry force. Some would immediately object and claim that Persia’s elite ten-thousand-man Immortals fit this bill. 5 However, this force wore only light protection and was never able to stand toe-to-toe with heavily armored hoplites. Herodotus describes the Persian Immortals as follows:
    They wore soft felt caps on their heads, which they call tiaras, and multicolored tunics with sleeves covering their bodies, and they had breastplates of iron fashioned to look like fish scales. On their legs they wore trousers, and instead of shields they carried pieces of wicker, which had quivers hung below them. They were armed with short spear, long bows, and arrows made of reeds. From their belts they fastened daggers, which hung down their right thigh. 6
    Herodotus further tells us that this “elite” Persian force tended to make campaigning as easy as possible on itself:
    The most impressive dress and equipment were displayed by the Persians.… Their dress and equipment was conspicuous because of the lavish amount of gold that they wore. And they had brought along covered wagons which carried their concubines and large retinues of well