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Relief of Ardashir I, in Naqsh-e Rustam

The birth of the Sassanid army (Persian: لشگر ساسانيان‎ Læškar-e Sāsānīyān) dates back to Ardashir I rise to the throne, when he planned a clear military aimed at the revival of the Persian Empire by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and its officers were separate from satraps and local princes and nobility. He restored the Achaemenid military organizations, retained Parthian cavalry, and employed new types of armour and siege warfares. This was a beginning for an army which served he and his successors for over 400 years making Sassanids, along with the Roman Empire and later Byzantine Empire, the superpowers of late antiquity and defending Eranshahr (Iran) from east against central Asiatic nomads like Hephthalites, Turks and from west against the Roman Empire and later on the Byzantine Empire.^[1]

A fine cameo showing an equestrian combat of Shapur I and Valerian in which the Roman emperor is seized, according to Shapur’s own statement, “with our own hand”, in year 256.

In the character of their warfare, the Persians of the Sassanian period did not greatly differ from the same people under the Achaemenian kings. The principal changes which time had brought about were an almost entire disuse of the war chariot and the advance of the elephant corps into a very prominent and important position. Four main arms of the service were recognized, each standing on a different level: viz. the elephants, the horse, the archers, and the ordinary footmen.^[2]

• Eran Spahbod: Commander-in chief
• Spahbod: Field general
• Marzban: Commander of the border guards
• Poshtikban Salar: Head of royal guard
• Iran anbaraghbad: Senior rank responsible for army supplies
• Stor-bezashk: Senior vet who looked after cavalry elite's mounts
• Payygan Salar: Chief of infantry division
• Savaran Sardar: Head of cavalry division

A medieval Armenian miniature representing the Sassanid Persians War elephants in the Battle of Vartanantz

Dish Shapur II Hunting Lions 4th century.

Depiction of a Sassanid Clibanarii cavalry in the 2005 PC game Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion.

The backbone of the Spah سپاه (army) in the Sassanid era was their heavy armoured cavalry. This was made up of noblemen who underwent extensive exercises in warfare and military manoeuvres through military training, gaining discipline and becoming truly elite soldiers.^[1] Within the Sassanian military, the cavalry was the most influential element, and Sassanian cavalry tactics were adopted by the Romans, Arabs, and Turks. Their cavalry systems of weaponry, battle tactics, tamgas, Medallions, court customs, and costumes influenced Romano-Byzantine culture. It was after several wars between the Sassanids and Romans that the Romans came to realize the importance of heavy cavalry, and afterwards they re-organized their heavy cavalry units around oriental (Sassanid in particular) models. They called these newly formed units clibanarii; It is said the word clibanarii is derived from Persian word griwbanwar or griva-pana-bara meaning neck-guard wearer.

Shapur II reformed the army by adopting heavier and more effective cavalry. These mounted units were clad in thick iron plates which covered their entire body. This made them look very much like moving iron statues. Some were armed with a lance and some with a sword and/or mace.^[1] There are depictions of aforementioned cavalry, one of the best preserved ones is on a rock relief at Taq-e Bostan where Khosrau II is on his favourite horse Shabdiz.

The fighting equipment of the heavily-armed Sassanid horsemen were:

• Clibanarii cavalry helmet, hauberk (Pahlavi griwban), breastplate, mail, gauntlet (Pahlavi abdast), girdle, thigh-guards (Pahlavi ran-ban) sword, mace, bowcase with two bows and two bowstrings, quiver with 30 arrows, two extra bowstrings, and horse armour (zen-abzar).
• Cataphract cavalry: helmet, hauberk, breastplate, mail, gauntlet, girdle, thigh-guards, bowcase with two bows and two bowstrings, quiver with 30 arrows, spear, and horse armour (zen-abzar); to these some have added a lasso (kamand), or a sling with pellets.^[1]

Along with the heavy cavalry there were lighter-armoured cavalry which were not made up of Sassanids but were recruited from their allies and supplemented by mercenary troops. Gelani (Guilani), Albani, Hephthalites, Kushans and the Khazars were the main suppliers of this light to medium armoured cavalry. They were an essential part of spah because of their endurance and speed on the battlefield.

Both types of cavalry units were supported by war elephants and elite foot archers who showered the enemy with storms of arrows.^[1] The elephant corps held the first position. It was recruited from India, but was at no time very numerous. Great store was set by it; and in some of the earlier battles against the Arabs the victory was regarded as gained mainly by this arm of the service. It acted with best effect in an open and level district; but the value put upon it was such that, however rough, mountainous, and woody the country into which the Persian arms penetrated, the elephant always accompanied the march of the Persian troops, and care was taken to make roads by which it could travel. The elephant corps was under a special chief, known as the Zend−hapet, or "Commander of the Indians," either because the beasts came from that country, or because they were managed by natives of Hindustan.^[3] These giant beasts acted as walking towers on battlefields and caused panic and disorder in enemy ranks, creating openings in the lines that cavalry could take advantage of.

• Persian immortal guard
• Azadan nobility Savaran (elite cavalry also described as Persian knighty caste)
• War elephants
• Light cavalry (archers)
• Medium cavalry (Medium armoured cavalry armed with lance and shield)
• Clibanarii cavalry (Heavy cavalry armed with maces and swords)
• Cataphract cavalry (Heavy cavalry armed with lances)

A Sassanid gold sword handle and chapes.

The infantry were mostly lightly-armoured spearman but in some battles heavy infantry was deployed. These well-paid, heavily-armoured infantry (carrying either sword or mace) were the equals of the Roman legions. For instance during Khosrau I era, his infantry were more disciplined and better equipped than Byzantine legions.^{[verification needed]} The Daylam and Sogdiana provinces of the empire were famous for their formidable ability as foot soldiers.

The archers formed the elite of the Persian infantry. They were trained to deliver their arrows with extreme rapidity, and with an aim that was almost unerring. The huge wattled shields, adopted by the Achaemenian Persians from the Assyrians, still remained in use; and from behind a row of these, rested upon the ground and forming a sort of loop−holed wall, the Sassanian bowmen shot their weapons with great effect; nor was it until their store of arrows was exhausted that the Romans, ordinarily, felt themselves upon even terms with their enemy. Sometimes the archers, instead of thus fighting in line, were intermixed with the heavy horse, with which it was not difficult for them to keep pace. They galled the foe with their constant discharges frombetween the ranks of the horsemen, remaining themselves in comparative security, as the legions rarely ventured to charge the Persian mailed cavalry. If they were forced to retreat, they still shot backwards as they fled; and it was a proverbial saying with the Romans that they were then especially formidable.^[4]

• Daylami (heavy infantry)
• Paygan (medium infantry armed with spears and large shields)
• Levy Spearman (light spearman)
• Kamandaran (elite foot archers)
• Kurdish javeliner

The Sassanids (unlike the Parthians) had organized and efficient methods of siege warfare for conquering walled towns. Many methods were learned from the Romans, but soon the Sassanids came to match them not only in the use of offensive siege engines such as scorpions, ballistae, battering rams, but they also adopted excellent defensive tactics for their fortifications, such as methods for using and countering catapults, for throwing stones or pouring boiling liquid on the attackers or by hurling fire brands and blazing missiles.^[1]

• Scorpion
• Ballista
• Battering ram
• Onager (siege weapon)

Depiction (bottom) of the ideal Sassanid Clibanarii cavalry equipment in the monumental reliefs at Taq-e Bostan.

This class of nobility was first formed in Parthian times, and continuing to the time of the Sassanids they were a force to be reckoned with. They accompanied the king in the wars and stood against the enemy with great courage and discipline. They are clearly the forerunners and founders of the "Knights" of later Arab history.^[5] Aztan (Azadan) آزادان (freemen) jealously guarded their status as descendants of ancient Aryan conquerors and rulers of the mass of originally non-Aryan peasantry. These Azatan formed a numerous minor aristocracy of lower ranking administrators, mostly living on their small estates and providing cavalry backbone of Sassanid army. Of most prestigious were the armoured "Aswaran" اسوران who normally decided the outcome of a battle.^[6]

Despite their downfall in the 7th century AD, the legacy of the Savaran endures in the Caucasus, India and the Muslim world. It was the elite cavalry of Sassanian Persia who were the forerunners of the later Arabian Faris, the Caucasian horsemen, the Indian Suwar (derived from Persian Savar), and the Turkish Tarkhans.^[7]

In point of fact, certain of the later Muslim heavy cavalry, such as the Mamluks, were possibly the descendants of the clibanarii cavalry, as they used similar weapons and tactics.^[1]

The amount of money involved in maintaining a warrior of the Asawaran (Azatan) knightly caste required a small estate, and the Asawaran (Azatan) knightly caste received that from the throne, and in return, were the throne's most notable defenders in time of war.

• Spahbod
• Byzantine army

• A.D.H. Bivar, , ‘Cavalry Equipment and Tactics on the Euphrates Frontier’,Dumbarton Paks Papers 26 (1972), pp. 271-291.
• Kaveh Farrokh, Sassanian Elite Cavalry, AD224-642 (Osprey Publishing 2005)
• Dr. David Nicolle, Sassanian Armies : the Iranian empire early 3rd to mid-7th centuries AD (Montvert Publishing 1996). ISBN 1-874101-08-6
• Philip Rance, ‘Elephants in Warfare in Late Antiquity’, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 43 (2003), pp. 355-8
• Peter Wilcox, Rome's Enemies 3: Parthians and Sassanid Persians (Osprey Publishing 2001). ISBN 0-85045-688-6

• Sassanian Army, By Professor A.Sh.Shahbazi
• An Overview of the Sasanian Military by C. Cornuelle