What went wrong?
>>825327
> building in a desert
I don't know.
>>825327
An army made up mostly of levied goatherders from various vassal state
>>825336
That doesn't mean anything you imbecile. Egypt was in a desert, and Egypt most certainly WUZ
>>825327
Islam happened
>>825336
Egypt was incredibly fertile land
>>825483
Sorry these are so small.
>>826343
>>826346
>>826351
>>825533
Egypt wasn't a desert when they started.
>>826353
>>826359
Don't know if the colouring here is accurate or just speculation.
>>826370
>>826371
>>826374
Might as well throw in some other reconstructions too.
>>826496
>>826503
>>825549
Kek
>>825554
/thread
>>830085
Pisslam cannot fail to ruin everything it comes in contact with.
>>830229
Uh... K.
>>825476
>Arsacids ! = Achaemenids
Also main military force for the Achaemenids, Arsacids, and Sassanids were their cavalry units and archers, retard.
>>830336
>After invading the Achaemenid Persia, in the year 330 BC, Alexander the Great sent the main force of his army to Persepolis by the Royal Road. Alexander stormed the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains), then quickly captured Persepolis before its treasury could be looted. After several months, Alexander allowed his troops to loot Persepolis.
>At the time, Alexander burned "the palaces" or "the palace," universally believed now to be the ruins at Persepolis. From Stolze's investigations, it appears that at least one of these, the castle built by Xerxes I, bears evident traces of having been destroyed by fire.
>>830393
>Battle of the Persian Gates
I guess every great military commander has at least one hilarious fuck up.
>>825327
Nothing major, just the final last few Persian Emperors were incompetent, naive, or corrupt by their own court that made curtailing Macedonian/Greek power an impossible task. Remember the Achaemaenids are a continuation of the Median royal family via Cyrus the Great's maternal grandfather.
For nearly 400 years they ruled the Near East. Pretty great run desu.
>>830336
>Uh... K.
Excellent /int/-level discourse, you'll go far on this board
>>825533
>Egypt
>desert
>/his/torical board
>>825327
Royal incest is what happened.
>>825476
>Levied Goathearders
>LE SLAAAAAAVES NOT SOLDIEEEERS
Herodotus please go.
The average Persian Infantryman came from a professional class of fighters who received plots of land from the Satrap they're under.
They just sucked at fighting the Greeks *in Greece* because they're far more used to the light infantry combat that is the mainstay of their origin & the middle east.
Furthermore, the other soldiers of the Persian Empire were the military organizations of subject races and mercenaries
Which included professional soldiers (i.e. Assyrians), Tribalniggers who did nothing else but fight (Bactrians, Hyrkanians), and Steppe Nomads (Scythians)
>>831746
Pretty much this. One, the Achaemenid Empire's army was constantly evolved. Two, the Near East where the Persians started expanding is relatively a flat area with open plains. Cyrus the Great's army was seen and reported as being mixed between a core of highly trained from birth Persians and other Iranians like the Medes who excelled as archers and light infantry built around quick response formations and rapid mobility. And of course the evolution of Persian cavalry.
Even Xenophon believed that like most young free Iranians, Cyrus the Younger and Cyrus the Great's training in the ways of warfare were universal, as in not special; they learned archery, hunting, horsemanship, and sword fighting as soon as they could walk. In fact Xenophon believes most Persians learned to master a horse before they can do more then walk as soon as it was possible.
The entire reason for the evolution of Greek heavy infantry like Hoplites is because Greece is a heavily mountainous and rocky country. That necessitated the cause for heavy infantry to be more armored to hold and guard major passages in valleys or mountain trails.
In fact the Persians were heavily handicapped because they couldn't really use their cavalry as much as they wanted to in Greece when invading. And by that point in Xerxes' reign and time, the Persian military was largely focused on horsemanship, not primarily infantry.
The question isn't "what went wrong?" It's, "how did it go so right for over two centuries?"
Persian kings were constantly struggling with the impending the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire. Dynastic succession wasn't so strong either - according to precedent established by Cyrus, a king had to designate his heir on his deathbed. This resulted in an abundance of royal intrigue in the following generations.
I think the Achaemenids just happened to have a good lineup: Cyrus served as the momentum, while Darius and Xerxes maneuvered the nodes of bureaucracy.
>>832264
Technically speaking, the Achaemenids were just the second half of the first native Iranian Empire. What's more amazing.
>succession
That wasn't an issue until Cambyses came along and then died barely 9 years into his reign at a relatively young age. Darius, Xerxes, Atarxerxes, the line of succession was pretty solid until Cyrus the Younger and his brother and later court intrigues. But that isn't particular to Persians, even the Romans, Byzantines, Greeks, and everyone else would ahve this problem.
>>832264
>become king due to palace intrigues
>when it comes to choosing your heir, whisper his name to whichever disloyal courtier is closest to your deathbed
Too much persian diaspora attitude ITT
>>831920
So how did alex fuck them up on their home turf then?
>>832269
>Technically speaking, the Achaemenids were just the second half of the first native Iranian Empire. What's more amazing.
Ferdowsi pls go, the Medes weren't a real empire
>>832883
You know Alex nearly died several times in battle with the Persians right?
>>833411
My point was, if the persians and greeks developed their armies in response to their enviroments (open plains and heavily mountainous country as the other anon claims), why did the outnumbered greeks btfo the persians when fighting on terrain the latter was more adapted to? And if heavy infantry was so superior on the plains, why didn't the persians develop it too?
>>834756
What heavy infantry superiority? You think the Macedonian/Greek armies under Alexander were solely based around their infantry? You know the most elite units were their cavalry which were modeled off the Persians own right?
>>834756
Because Persians put their emphasis like their Iranian kin on mainly archers and cavalry? The light armored infantry from the armies of Cyrus and Cambyses time were no longer the nucleus of Persian armies. From Darius' time and onwards, the infantry were mainly levied from local satraps or brought in by other tribes or nations allied with the Achaemenids like the Bactarians, Hrykanians, Sogdians, and Manzanderanis to name a few.
That's why the concept of heavy armored infantry was never supplied or a major thing with Persians themselves. Persian military by the time of Alexander's war with the Persian Empire was mainly formed around medium and light cavalry and archers while other nations provided their foot soldiers.
So why would the Persians or Iranian people focus on heavy infantry when outside of two failed expeditions into Greece, they were constantly and infinitely more successful with their current MO in the Near East, Eurasia, and Asia?
>>834778
Model macedonian troop was the phalanx. Hellas was too mountainous for calvalry development
See Theodore Ayrault Dodge on Alexander
>>834778
And the fact Alexander did that was revolutionary. Part of the reason he conquered so much shit was inventing or adopting tactics and such. If he had just stuck with the same old formations and heavy infantry tactics of prior Greek history he (or his father) would not have seen the success they did.
>>834778
Most of his army was heavy infantry, and even if macedonian cavalry was elite, persians outnumbered them too.
I was originally responding to the anon who claimed both cultures developed their military to be effective in the geography of their respective homelands. If that's the case, how did greeks rape the persians while outnumbered and in their home territory? Was it because persian leadership was godawful? How do you lose a brawl with 5x lads at your back?
>>834939
it seems like persian history is a testament to them basically only being as good as their generals and really having a tendency to fall apart in the absence of good leadership. after salamis, xerxes just went home and it's not a real surprise that the persians lost at mantinea. even later on when cyrus the younger sought his father's throne, his entire effort fizzled out after he died at cunaxa. contrast this with their performance under cyrus the great and you get the feeling that the persian military's effectiveness was inordinately tied to their king's relative military prowess.
alexander was so effective not just because he had probably the best general staff in classical antiquity, but because he understood that the persians suffered from this disadvantage. at gaugemela, he specifically tailored his strategy in an attempt to either force darius to withdraw or be killed, knowing that the persian army would come apart without their king. lots of people will chock alexander's successes up to his dad doing the legwork in building a truly great army, but he was a brilliant strategic thinker.
>>825476
I will rape a fullstack army of legionaries with nothing but Eastern Infantry.
>>834939
And the most important part of his army were the Companions.
>>825327
>What went wrong?
Mongols
>>825847
Because they built in the river valley you mong.
Europeans found another way to Asia and merchants stopped going through Iran.
>>825336
There was water there you retard. They even had so much water that there was a garden built by the name of Pardise, hence the word paradise.
>>825336
Ancient pre-Achaemenid Persians were a semi-nomadic pastoral tribes that were able to mine and locate water with dowsing rods.
Also you know that Achaemenids and their successors built many canals and irrigation systems known as Qanats right?
>>838849
>dowsing rods
>>825327
What went wrong?
>>841056
No heir.
determining what causes a society to collapse?
that sounds political
prepare for deletion
