Historical Studies

Historical Studies

The Number of Sasanian Combat Forces in Defensive and Offensive Approaches

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Amin Babadi
PhD student in ancient Iranian history, Department of History, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
10.30465/hcs.2024.46058.2828
Abstract
Abstract
Having a reliable military force is one of the necessary conditions for the formation of a stable and dynamic political system, and this need was more felt in the ancient world and in such a land like the Iranian plateau with its special geography. With the establishment of the Sasanian Empire, the statesmen of this state tried to form a stable and numerous military forces to avoid the problems that occurred during the Arshakid period. Consequently, they could cope with the attacks of foreign states on several fronts at the same time. The main problem of this research, which has been neglected before, is the estimation of the number of defense and offensive forces of the Sasanians based on the available data. The findings of this research shows that the Sasanians got advantage from the great quantity of troops permanently and had the ability to deploy more than 100 thousand soldiers in one front. after Khosrow I’s military reforms, Sasanians having about 400 thousand permanent troops and also using the affiliated nomadic warrior forces, they employed a formidable and efficient military apparatus to defend their borders. Considering such a great quantity of troops dependent on the high economic ability of the Sasanian state. Through survey of the surviving tax data from the Sasanian kingdom shows that the Sasanians were able to pay wages to such a large force. The method of data collection in the current research is a library.
Keywords: Sasanians, Army, Khosrow Anuširwān, Military Divisions.
 
 
 
Introduction
The Sasanian Empire was always one of the most extensive and powerful political units in the world and managed to maintain this position for a relatively long time. The geographical location of this empire on the communication routes from East to West Asia and the crossing routes from Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent to Africa and Europe on the one hand gives it a considerable commercial prosperity and on the other hand exposed it to the invasion of various nations and governments who were looking at the wealth hidden inside it and the prosperity of its trade routes. Therefore, having a large and efficient military force was necessary to increase the lifespan of the Sasanian Empire, and keeping this empire for more than 400 years shows that they had this possibility. Previously, some researchers have mentioned the number of military forces of the Sasanian Empire, but usually their estimate was not the result of a detailed investigation in all available sources. The aim of this article is to achieve such an estimate.
 
Materials & methods
The method of the current research is content analysis method and the writer first describes the data related to the number of Sasanian military forces and finally tries to estimate the total number by analyzing them.
 
Discussion and Result
The sources related to the present research can be divided into two categories: Roman and Iranian sources. While the Roman sources are contemporary to the Sasanian Empire and usually do not suffer from the strange exaggerations of the Greek sources, their information is limited to the number of mobilized imperial forces on a front or the number of troops stationed in garrisons. On the opposite side, there are Iranian sources, almost all of which have reached us from a later period after the fall of the Sasanian Empire. Armenian sources can also be used sometimes, but strange exaggerations make it difficult to use them. None of these sources can be left out and limiting the research to one group of sources does not give reliable results. However, none of these sources independently conveys a direct estimate to the researcher, and therefore we are forced to confront them and draw out the final result, albeit an approximation. Ever since Artaxerxes I fought against the Romans, they always tried to exaggerate the description of their victories or reduce the burden of their defeats by emphasizing the great power of the enemy forces. From the same period, reliable data about the number of Sasanian forces at the beginning of the work are also available in Iranian sources. At the time of facing Shahpur I, Shahpur II, Qobad, Khosrow Anushirvan and Khosrow parviz, the Romans sometimes described the number of the Sasanian army. However, the problem of these sources is that they unilaterally refer to the Sasanian army on only one front, while they usually refuse to estimate the Sasanian forces on other fronts. although Iranian-Islamic sources are late, they provide good data about Sasanian encounters with northern, southern and eastern enemy forces, which can be used to supplement Roman data. In recent decades, archeological findings have also come to the aid of researchers, and with their help and by estimating the Sasanian forces in various castles and large defensive complexes such as the Gorgan Wall and the Darband Wall, it is possible to arrive at reliable results. Also, it seems that after the division of the territory into four parts by Khosrow Anushirvan, the number of Sasanian forces in different fronts found a certain order; In any case, a distinction should be made between the permanent and temporary forces of the Sasanian army before and after the reforms of Khosrow Anushirvan.
 
Conclusion
From the period before the reforms of Khosrow Anushirvan, sources sometimes refer to more than 100,000 Sasanian forces on one front, and sometimes the number of forces is estimated to be lower. The existence of numerous castles and extensive defense structures in the Sasanian territory shows that in addition to equipping the army on one front, the Sasanians also deployed a large number of defense forces on the borders. After the reforms of Khosrow Anushirvan, Iranian sources sometimes refer to 300 thousand soldiers under the command of the King of Kings, which, considering the loss of one Kust in each case, this number can be corrected to 400 thousand soldiers for 4 Kusts, which is probably the share of each Kust was equal. To this figure, the nomad forces and urban security forces should be added, which increases the total Sasanian forces to a considerable extent, perhaps to more than 600 thousand soldiers. It was with such a large force that the Sasanians managed to maintain their territory for more than 4 centuries.
Keywords
Sasanians
Army
Khosrow Anu&‌scaron؛ irwān
Military Divisions

Subjects

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Historical Studies
Volume 15, Issue 2 - Serial Number 30
Autumn and Winter 2024-2025
October 2024
Pages 79-117

  • Receive Date 07 July 2023
  • Revise Date 20 February 2024
  • Accept Date 19 October 2024