The military structure and practices of the Achaemenid Army during the reign of the Cyrus imperial

Subject Areas : Epistemological and methodological researcher of historical research

Afsane goli ¹ , naser jadidi ² , Feizollah Boushasb Gousheh ³

1 - Islamic Azad University, Najaf Abad, Iran
2 - Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor, Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad branch, Iran

Received: 2019-01-07 Accepted : 2020-06-15 Published : 2020-02-20

Keywords: Achaemenid, Cyrus, army, military tactics, military weapons,

Abstract :

The Achaemenid Empire was undoubtedly the greatest ancient empire and governed 220 years on the whole of the Middle East and beyond it. According to historians and also historical documents ,the Achaemenid Army was also one of the largest and most complex armies of ancient times. Achaemenid in two centuries dominated the vast empire that covered the old civilized world of Asia and Europe. No doubt that coping with strong powers like Babylon and Greece, that had all the military capabilities to build power and protect and maintain the territory required organized and regulated troops and special war and military tactics. Therefore, we intend to address in this paper the way of formation of the Achaemenid army and military tactics and practices at the time of the Cyrus monarchy. The findings of the research show that Cyrus was able to form strong and massive army using defeated Nation's military techniques. Indeed, one of the characteristics of the Achaemenid corps and army, which was considered especially as one of their strength points in the early years of the reign was collection forces of all dominant territories.