Persia thread
I've read that the Achaemenids banned slavery, but I've also heard others say it's not true or was decreed but never actually implemented. Maybe they didn't practice slavery themselves, but allowed its practice among subject populations? Can anyone shed some light on this?
I'll dump some reconstructions anyway.
Are Persians white?
>>1348420
Couldn't find this in a bigger size.
![Masjid_Shah,_view_of_the_courtyard_by_Pascal_Coste[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/C7z5jI9.jpg "Masjid_Shah,_view_of_the_courtyard_by_Pascal_Coste[1].jpg")
>>1348418
>Iranians
>White
I bet Persians would've loved LSD.
Could Persia be called "Babylon v5"? Why is Sumer so based? The Mesopotamians copied that style of winged lion king for thousands of years.
>>1348418
If this counts as white.
>>1348394
As far as my understanding goes slavery wasn't ever 'illegal' in Persia, but Persian slavery was more like compulsory employment where slaves were payed and allowed to have families outside the influence of their masters.
>>1348458
As far as I know that winged lion thing/bull thing starts with the Hittites, before spreading to the Neo-Hittites and Assyrians and then to the Persians. Maybe it goes back further than that though.
Persian master artist to his commission paid employees: "which of you idiots drew this fucking horse?!"
>>1348474
Actually never mind, I just remember seeing it in pic related.
>>1348418
White is whatever you want it to mean.
Unless you want it to mean what it literally means, which is a color, then no, no humans on earth are white.
>>1348448
They knew of magic mushrooms for sure.
>>1348336
So the other day I was in a thread about Greece, and asked a question that never got answered. Maybe I can get it from the other angle.
Pre-Macedonian Greece vs Achaemenid Persia. Why did the Persians have so much trouble, even outside of Greece itself?
I mean, if you read the Greek sources, you get an impression that Persian arms and especially armor were so behind what the Greeks themselves were using that they might have been unarmed, but at least from my cursory understanding of Achaemenid archeology, that's not really true. the Persians did indeed have relatively widespread metal armor. And at least some of those Persian troops would have been paid professionals, not citizens militia that was the norm in the Greek world sans sparta.
Persia's got a lot more manpower, and more wealth, almost certainly even more wealth per capita. Yet they lose a hell of a lot more than they win to things like the Delian league.
How the fuck does this happen?
Mazdak did nothing wrong
What are some good books on pre-Islamic Persia? I've been reading Herodotus's Histories and he touched on Persia a little bit, made me interested.
>>1348752
Buttsex.
>>1348840
USED
>>1348752
I don't know about other localities, but the Persian style of warfare is best suited for wide steppes, where they could surround, maneuver with horses and arrow the shit out of the enemy forces before overwhelming them with huge numbers. But all those advantages were denied by the terrain of Greece and their troop's tight formation.
Listen to this podacast for moar:
http://heritagepodcast.com/episode-022-greek-warfare
>>1348922
Except the Persians lost repeatedly to the Greeks in places that weren't like Greece either. The Thracian campaign in the 470s, the failed Egyptian campaign a decade later still saw the Greeks winning some serious battles, Cunaxa, etc: The Greeks seemed more than capable of fighting the Persians in the open and winning easily.
>>1348967
Because of the phalanx formation. Listen to the podcast.
>>1349014
And yet Phalanx formations weren't the be-all end all even in tight confines in Greece. "Lighter" troops, (and light is a relative term here) gave them hell during the Peloponesean war, from Pylos to the Spartan invasions of Attica to try to get to Larium, to the skirmishing units at Oenophyta.
And these are in way tighter, nastier terrain, where heavier troops would almost certainly do better.
In the open, where they can be flanked any which way? Or in any sort of terrain with breaks like rivers or even the crudest fortifications? That phalanx isn't really much of an advantage.
>>1348479
That doesn't look persian at all.
>>1349048
So what is your explanation?
>>1348786
Cambridge history of Iran will give you enough to read for weeks. It's expensive, tho.
>>1349048
>phalanx doesn't work in the open
>what is Gaugamela
>>1349070
I don't have one. That's why I asked the original question.
>>1349101
Gaugamela did not feature any non-professional citizen soldiers in a crude phalanx. Instead you had a huge (by Greek standards) set of multiple phalanxes, as each 16 by 16 group of Macedonian Phalaganites was an independent unit capable of doing things like TURNING AROUND TOGETHER that their forebears, even the Spartans, were never able to manage.
Not to mention the considerable backing by lighter troops that was the hallmark of Macedonian combined arms. Alexander wins the cavalry battle at Gaugamela in addition to the infantry battle, and while the exact composition of the Hypaspists has been lost to time, they were there too, along with local forces that he picked up on the way.
This isn't remotely comparable to things like the Delian League era warfare.
C A R R H A E
Persia > Iran
>>1349186
Greece > Hellas
Germany > Deuschland
Sweden > Sverige
Finland > Suomi
Agree?
