The great multitude of nomad tribes which wandered on the borders of the Persian empire greatly facilitated the assembling of mighty armaments. These tribes readily engaged in such enterprises, either for pay or allured by the hope of plunder. As the Baskirs and Calmucks follow the Russian armies, so did the Mardi, Pericanii, and others, those of Cyrus; and the more widely the dominion of the Persians was extended, the greater became the number of such auxiliaries. The Persians stood the more in need of their aid as their own cavalry was always heavy-armed. With them, as with the Parthians, both man and horse were armed in mail, though, strictly speaking, this appears to have been a distinction confined to a certain number, and the greater part seem to have had no defensive armour, and thus served to swell the carnage which the Greeks wrought among them after the victory of Platæa.
The foregoing sections must have served to explain the way in which these forces subsisted in the provinces. Each province was obliged to furnish to the governor what was necessary to their maintenance, in kind, and the governor caused what was so collected to be distributed among the soldiers. Payment in money was made only to the Grecian auxiliaries, who could not otherwise have been kept together, having been accustomed to the same in their own country; the Persians were bound to serve without pay, and the nomad races of Central Asia, many of whom had never even seen coined money, were as little disposed to require remuneration in that shape as are at the present day many of the auxiliaries of the Russian armies.
In a warlike nation, a military command always confers great distinction, being often regarded as more honourable than the civil magistracies; and this was the case among the Persians. The Myriarchs (commanders of tens of thousands) and Chiliarchs (commanders of thousands) enjoyed a distinguished rank, and the officers above them, the generals, were among the most illustrious of the nation. Of the generality of these we are expressly told that they belonged to the family of the Achæmenidæ, or at all events to the tribe of the Pasargadæ, or were connected by marriage with the royal house, and consequently the officers of rank consisted principally of the king’s kinsmen. Among these generals themselves, however (of whom there were usually several in an army), there existed gradations of rank; and if a king’s son was appointed generalissimo, this was understood as equivalent to his nomination as successor.
Hitherto we have confined our remarks to the troops which were regularly maintained by the Persians to defend the conquered provinces. With the exception of those raised among the Persians themselves, these appear, from what has been stated, to have consisted of mercenary troops, to the exclusion of the natives of the provinces themselves; nevertheless, the latter were by no means free from all military service, but were summoned on occasions of extraordinary expeditions undertaken for the extension of the empire. On such emergencies general mandates were issued throughout all the vast dominion of Persia, the nations of the East and West were gathered together in herds, and one of the most extraordinary spectacles ensued which the history of the world has recorded, and the more deserving of our regard for the accuracy with which Herodotus has described the armament of Darius, and still more that of Xerxes.
When the Persians began their career as conquerors they adopted, and always maintained, the custom that the conquered nations should swell the numbers of their host, and accompany them in their more remote expeditions. When, however, their empire had become consolidated and organised, and stretched from the Indus to the Mediterranean, the drawing together of forces so widely disseminated must have become burdened with endless difficulties, and would consequently, on occasions of minor importance (such as slight internal disturbances, or trifling wars,) have been as futile as impossible. On extraordinary occasions, however, whether of great national undertakings for the aggrandisement of the empire, or of formidable invasions from without, the custom was revived of mustering the whole force of the empire, as is proved by the mighty expeditions of Darius Hystaspes, of Xerxes, and the last Darius.
Even the preliminary steps to such armaments were of vast magnitude. The king’s mandate was addressed to all nations, and specified the number of men, horses, and ships, or the amount of provisions to be furnished by each. The commotion which was excited in all Asia by the preparations made for the expedition of Xerxes, lasted for four years. Time was necessary to enable the remote nations to send in their contingent.
A general rendezvous was then appointed, which, in the case of the armament just mentioned, was Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Hither all the contingents of the different provinces resorted, conducted by leaders of their own race. These, however, were allowed no authority in actual war, the officers being taken exclusively from among the Persians. This was a privilege reserved for the conquering nation, as was the case, also, among the Mongols and Tatars. The subject nations, on the other hand, were treated as bondsmen, and termed slaves, in contradistinction to the Persians, who were denominated freemen. These terms, however, only marked the comparative freedom of the nations to whom they were applied, for with reference to the king, the Persians were as little free as the other subject nations.
The order of the march, as long as the army continued to traverse the dominions of the empire, was remarkable; or rather, it might almost be called an absence of all order. The men were not arranged according to the nations to which they belonged, but formed one vast chaotic mass. In the centre was the king, among his Persians, and the baggage was sent on before. As the troops advanced on their march, the inhabitants of the country were driven on before them, and augmented the numbers of the host, which thus perpetually accumulated; and as most nations took their wives and children with them to war, the baggage must have been immense. Undoubtedly the most inexplicable part of this account, is the way in which the army was supplied with provisions. In the countries through which they had to pass, magazines of corn were necessarily prepared, long before, and further supplies of the same followed the army by sea. The rest of their food the forces were left to find for themselves. For the king and his suite banquets were provided long before, and with such an unbounded expense that this alone sufficed to ruin the cities which furnished them. This also was a consequence of the idea that a monarch was the sole proprietor of all that his provinces contained, and the Persians understood this so literally as to carry away with them the costly utensils of plate which were displayed on these occasions. It is needless to say that the idea of a regular encampment could not be entertained in the case of such enormous hosts; the king and his great men had indeed their tents, but the army at large bivouacked under the open heavens, the necessary consequence being a multitude of diseases.
It was only on their approaching the enemy’s borders that the army was classed according to the nations of which it was composed; and at the same time the host was reviewed at the king’s command. To this custom we are indebted for that precious document, the catalogue of the host of Xerxes, which the Father of History has preserved for us. This review took place just within the confines of Europe, and little as the scene may instruct the soldier, this is one of the most interesting of all the records of history to the philosophical historian. On no occasion have so many and such various races of men been gathered together as were here assembled in one spot, in their appropriate dresses and armour, on the plain of Doriscus. Herodotus has enumerated and described fifty-six, which served some on foot, some on horseback, and others on board the fleet. Here were to be seen the cotton garments of the Indians, and the Ethiopians from above Egypt habited in lions’ hides, the swarthy Baluchis from Gedrosia, and the nomad hordes from the steppes of Mongolia and Great Bucharia; wild races of huntsmen like the Sagartians, who, destitute of weapons of brass or iron, caught their enemies, like animals of the chase, in leathern lassos; and besides these, the rich dresses of the Medes and Bactrians, the Libyans drawn in war chariots of four horses, and the Arabs mounted on camels. Here also were to be seen the fleets of the Phœnicians and the Greeks of Asia Minor, compelled to serve against their kindred. Never did despotic power create a spectacle more glorious at its commencement or more lamentable in its issue. The straits of Thermopylæ first presented to the astonished Asiatics a sight completely novel to them; it was to no purpose that their countless hordes were driven by the scourge against a handful of Spartans; and although treachery at last conducted them over the lifeless bodies of those heroes, the names of Salamis and Platæa remained behind, everlasting monuments of Grecian valour.