Parthian Army composition

I've been reading this page for the last few days, which greatly increased my understanding about the Parthian empire, especially with their rise to power, about which i had very little knowledge before... I knew the basics, but this page has some really nice portreyals bi Justin and such historians + much more, and it's a really nice reade for anyone that's interested.

But then i came to this chapter http://www.persianempire.info/parthia9.htm , describing the events before the battle of Carrhae, and to my surpirse there is a statement that says that giving Surena a full cavalry army was more of a matter of case than standard practice, since king Orodes II couldn't use it in Armenia where he went to wage war.

It is said that the Parthian army usually had about 1:5 ratio in terms of cavalry vs infantry, and that got me really confused.
I always thought that the Parthian army was mostly horse, with a few infantry units here and there...

Can anyone shed some light to this subject? In EB i read that Parthia used mostly cavalry army, and since EB is kinda of a bible to me ( I even proved my professors wrong a few times becouse of the knowledge i got from EB), i tend to believe what EB says, but any other info would be awesome...

Thanks

1:5 is quite a good ratio. Roman legions at some point had it like 1:10 or 1:15.

Horse army is more expensive than infantry-based one, and to be honest, except some closer raids of the cavalry, it's not really that much faster or actually horse-only force. Horse armies still need supplies, they need camps, replacements, garrison units, wagons and additional personel.

One would assume that like most conquering peoples, the Parthians were forced to draft members of conquered societies and cultures into their armies. The majority of these assimilated soldiers would probably be foot soldiers of some sort. Remember the majority of Persians were foot soldiers, not mounted and I would think that Persians made up a large portion of Parthian forces.

Depends on the enemy the Parthians were fighting too. An all-cavalry army makes sense when you're fighting Scythian steppe nomads, all of them mounted. This can be done because steppe nomads rarely assembled really big armies, raids were far more common.

Against the Baktrians, Seleucids, or Armenians, however, infantry can be the main bulk of the army (although cavalry remain the arm of decision.)

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Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato

Depends on the enemy the Parthians were fighting too. An all-cavalry army makes sense when you're fighting Scythian steppe nomads, all of them mounted. This can be done because steppe nomads rarely assembled really big armies, raids were far more common.

Against the Baktrians, Seleucids, or Armenians, however, infantry can be the main bulk of the army (although cavalry remain the arm of decision.)

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Do you know this for a fact? Or is it just speculation?

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Originally Posted by anubis88

Do you know this for a fact? Or is it just speculation?

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Speculation, but it's common sense. A Parthian spearman on foot can't possibly catch and kill a Scythian nomad raider on horseback. The horseman can just fall back and stay out of range, while shooting arrows! A Parthian foot archer can at least shoot back, but still can't catch the enemy if he doesn't want to be caught.

Defending a walled town, however, is another matter - spearmen and foot archers can do that. But then we're talking about a Parthian garrison, not a Parthian field army.

I'm not so sure the game mechanics could prove very helpful in building a historicaly accurate Parthian army.:no: The main reason being that the AI Arche Seleukeia (but also Saka for sure) is shelling you with halfstacks and fullstacks consisting of high cavalry/infantry proportions (certainly higher than 1:10, 1:15 or 1:5 mentioned earlier).

Even a semi-crappy AS halfstack of 10 units will usually come packing 1 FM (hetairoi bodyguard) + 1 unit of skirmisher cavalry. Sakas are usually all-cavalry armies or pack at least 50% mounted units.So you see playing as Pahlava you have to counter such ridiculously over-powered horse armies.

Taking into account that Pahlava's edge over AS is precisely cavalry you'll ultimately end up fielding Pahlava armies of at least 25-50% .Or you can keep your army disproportianate in terms of infantry/army ratios compared to AS. That way though you'll start feeling like playing Seleukeia (only you'll have to rely on crappy infantry units) against the Seleukids who'll behave more like nomads than phallanx-oriented Greeks...

I'm not blaming the EB guys (we all know how much work they've put into EB-and it shows !!!)just pointing out (what i imagine is) the engine's hardcoded limitations. :sad2:

Click here one of the best book written about Parthia by George Rawlinson. I love Guttenberg, he also wrote all ancient dinasties of Iran / Persia including sassanids.

They of course used infantry but in field battles cavalry dominated their ranks.

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Originally Posted by Atraphoenix

Click here one of the best book written about Parthia by George Rawlinson. I love Guttenberg, he also wrote all ancient dinasties of Iran / Persia including sassanids.

They of course used infantry but in field battles cavalry dominated their ranks.

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Incredible... Ancient Persia was the last EB time frame major power that i didn't pay much attention to. It will definetly change now...

Thanks a lot

Our Parthian guy says that a 10:1 ratio between horse archers and cataphracts seems to have been norm in Early Parthian period. When they became more settled and lorded over more resources apparently the number of cataphracts increased.
This is of course mobile field armies when settled and the norm when nomadic.

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Originally Posted by anubis88

Do you know this for a fact? Or is it just speculation?

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I've read somewhere that during some point, the Han Dynasty was 1/3 cavalry, and during their wars against the Xiongnu Confederation, some of their armies were comprised of almost entirely cavalry (although a lot of the soldiers were 'mobile infantry' - infantry that rode on horseback but dismounted to fight, instead of pure cavalry)...

not all, most hitched rides on wagons and chariots..A horse for every infantry is an expensive matter...

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Originally Posted by Intranetusa

I've read somewhere that during some point, the Han Dynasty was 1/3 cavalry, and during their wars against the Xiongnu Confederation, some of their armies were comprised of almost entirely cavalry (although a lot of the soldiers were 'mobile infantry' - infantry that rode on horseback but dismounted to fight, instead of pure cavalry)...

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very well possible. In ancient arabia many armies travelled completely by camel. As not everyone could effort one, often two men rode one camel. Most dismounted for fighting tough.

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Originally Posted by satalexton

not all, most hitched rides on wagons and chariots..A horse for every infantry is an expensive matter...

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On wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mobei

The battle of Mobei resulted in 20,000 dead soldiers but 110,000 dead horses... ='(

Wiki's crazy at times, I have no idea why they call it a 'battle' when it was infact a massive campaign spanning at least 3 main fronts and god knows how many skirmishes...I have a copy of Han Shu, and I can't be bothered to count.

What was true is that Han had a horse shortages for the next decade, which caused them to rely on allies for HAs while 'upgrading' their existing ones to (almost catank-like) heavy cavalry...

...ahh i think I went OT..lol sry.

Sorry I handn'T the time to read the whole thread, but maybe you should also consider the year we're talking about. I think the might be a difference of the army's composition of the 3rd and of the 1st century bc...

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Originally Posted by ziegenpeter

Sorry I handn'T the time to read the whole thread, but maybe you should also consider the year we're talking about. I think the might be a difference of the army's composition of the 3rd and of the 1st century bc...

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Well the page states, that it was standard practice for the Parthians to have a lot of infantry. A sentence like this makes you think this goes way back

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Originally Posted by satalexton

Wiki's crazy at times, I have no idea why they call it a 'battle' when it was infact a massive campaign spanning at least 3 main fronts and god knows how many skirmishes...I have a copy of Han Shu, and I can't be bothered to count.

What was true is that Han had a horse shortages for the next decade, which caused them to rely on allies for HAs while 'upgrading' their existing ones to (almost catank-like) heavy cavalry...

...ahh i think I went OT..lol sry.

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Fulfill your duties as a citizen of wikipedia and edit/fix that article! :D

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Originally Posted by Intranetusa

On wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mobei

The battle of Mobei resulted in 20,000 dead soldiers but 110,000 dead horses... ='(

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This is right according to the records in classic Chinese histories, they brought more than 140,000 horses into desert while only 30,000 returned.

The XiongNu took even worse losses....that does reflect the brutal, mutually destroying nature of war =[

No, maybe they had more cavalry in the earlier times, when they were "only" horse riders. do we know the composition of other Horse people?

I'm not saying they lost -more- horses, but more rather they lost almost all of their herds, and grazing grounds. They were literally pushed to the desert, and forced to live there.