What Weapons Did Ancient Persian Soldiers Use?

The bow, the spear, the sword, and the wicker shield. The bow was the signature weapon of the Persian mounted warrior across all three empires; the spear and the short sword were the close-combat weapons; the wicker shield was the standard infantry defence. The Parthians and Sasanians added the heavy lance of the cataphract, the long sword, and scale-and-lamellar armour. The standard survey of the late antique equipment is Klaus Schippmann’s Encyclopaedia Iranica article on the Sasanian army; the standard work on the Achaemenid equipment, with attention to the reliefs and the archaeological record, is Margaret Cool Root’s The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art (1979). The wider context is in the Persian Military and Warfare pillar.

The composite recurve bow

The signature weapon of the Persian soldier, from the Achaemenid to the Sasanian period, was the composite recurve bow. The bow was made of wood, horn, and sinew, glued together and shaped into a double curve that gave it a draw weight far higher than that of a simple wooden bow of the same size. The composite bow was an Iranian invention of the second millennium BCE, and it was the weapon with which the Iranian peoples, from the Medes to the Sasanians, established their military reputation. The Achaemenid bow, as described by Herodotus, was a substantial weapon, and the Achaemenid archer was expected to draw it to the full extent of its length. The bow was carried in a leather case, the gorytos, which also held a quiver of arrows.

The Parthian and Sasanian bows were even more powerful, and the famous Parthian shot — the controlled backward fire of arrows from a retreating horse — was a technique that required long training and exceptional strength. The surviving examples in the British Museum, the Hermitage, and the National Museum of Iran give us the technical specifications: draw weights of 50–80 kg, lengths of 120–130 cm, effective range of 200–300 metres in the hands of a trained horse archer. A single Sasanian mounted archer could deliver, in a minute, as many arrows as a small Roman infantry unit.

The spear and the lance

The spear was the second principal weapon of the Persian soldier, and the long spear, with its apple-shaped gold and silver buttspike, was the visual identifier of the Immortals on the battlefield. The Achaemenid spear was a relatively light weapon, used for the thrust and for the volley of spears that preceded a charge. The Parthian and Sasanian heavy cavalry, the cataphracts, used a heavier lance, a couched weapon that was used in the manner of the medieval knight. The Sasanian lance, in particular, was a substantial weapon, often of bamboo or ash, with a heavy iron head and a metal or wooden butt. The lance was the principal shock weapon of the Sasanian heavy cavalry, and the famous Sasanian charge, in which a line of fully armoured cataphracts rode down Roman or Byzantine infantry, was a tactical combination of the lance and the bow.

The short sword and the akinakes

The short sword of the Achaemenid period, the akinakes (Greek akinakes; the Herodotean spelling acinaces is the standard form in modern classical scholarship), was a straight, double-edged weapon of bronze or iron, worn at the side in a scabbard. The akinakes was the Persian weapon par excellence, and it is mentioned repeatedly in the Greek sources as the characteristic weapon of the Persian noble. The akinakes was used in close combat, and it was the weapon with which the Persian kings, in legend, executed the most solemn acts of justice. The surviving examples in the British Museum, the Hermitage, and the National Museum of Iran are typically 35–50 cm in blade length, with a hilt of ivory, gold, or silver for the noble examples.

The Sasanian sword, in turn, was a longer and heavier weapon, of the type that would be adopted by the early Islamic empires as the sayf. The Sasanian sword, with its long straight blade and its richly decorated hilt, was exported across Eurasia, and the surviving examples in the Iranian and Russian museums are a measure of the sophistication of the late Sasanian weapons industry.

The dagger, the axe, and the mace

The dagger was a standard sidearm of the Persian soldier, and it was particularly common among the infantry. The Persian dagger was a short, double-edged weapon of bronze or iron, worn at the belt. The battle-axe and the mace, in turn, were specialist weapons used by the heavy cavalry and by the officers of the army. The Sasanian mace, in particular, was a substantial weapon, with a long wooden haft and a heavy iron or bronze head, and it was used by the cataphracts as a close-combat weapon after the lance had been expended. The surviving Sasanian mace-heads in the Iranian and Russian museums are typically 4–6 cm in diameter, with 6–10 flanges, and the weapon is the ancestor of the Islamic gurz.

Wicker shields, helmets, and body armour

The standard defensive equipment of the Achaemenid soldier was the wicker shield, a light, round or rectangular construction of woven reed or wicker, covered with leather and fitted with a central metal boss. The wicker shield was light enough to be carried with ease, and it was the standard defensive weapon of the Persian infantry. The Greek sources, which were accustomed to the heavy bronze shield of the hoplite, sometimes mocked the wicker shield as inadequate, but the Persian infantry fought according to a tactical doctrine that did not require the same kind of close-order defence as the Greek phalanx. Helmets, in the Achaemenid period, were of bronze or iron, of a type that was influenced by the Greek, Assyrian, and Median traditions. The reliefs of Persepolis show a complete range of helmet types, and the surviving examples in the Iranian and British museums are a measure of the sophistication of the Achaemenid armourer’s craft.

The Sasanian soldier, in turn, wore a much more substantial armour harness. The Sasanian cataphract, in particular, wore a complete harness of scale or lamellar armour that covered both rider and horse, and the Sasanian infantry wore a lighter scale or quilted armour. The Sasanian helmet, of which the surviving examples in the Iranian and Russian museums are a measure, was a sophisticated piece of metalwork, often fitted with a face guard and a neck protector. (Full plate armour is anachronistic for the Sasanian period; the surviving evidence and the iconography of Taq-e Bostan and the rock reliefs show scale and lamellar rather than plate.)

The royal standards

The royal standards of the Persian army, of which the Derafsh Kaviani was the most famous, were carried into battle as symbols of the king and the empire, and the ritual of raising the royal standard marked the opening of a campaign. The standard of the Immortals, a gold plaque bearing the image of a hawk or a falcon, was carried at the head of the regiment, and the standard of the Sasanian army, a richly embroidered banner bearing the image of the sun or of the king on horseback, was carried at the head of the Sasanian forces.

The chariot, the elephant, and the camel

Chariots and elephants were used throughout the period. The Achaemenid army maintained a substantial corps of four-horse chariots, organised in squadrons of ten or twenty; the Persepolis reliefs show a complete chariot service, with grooms, farriers, and charioteers. Darius III deployed a force of war elephants at Gaugamela in 331 BCE; the number is unknown — Arrian mentions fifteen, but his number is unreliable. The Sasanians used elephants more sparingly. Camels were standard in the Arabian and Syrian frontier, both as supply animals and for the camel-mounted archers of the desert.