Quote Originally Posted by |Sith|DarthRoach View Post
But why were the Sassanids so pathetic?


And why were the Achaemenids such failures? It seems they always outnumbered their opponents, and nearly always lost. I wonder how they managed not to die out.
The Achaemenids were failures? I didn't know you considered creating one of the most powerful and the largest empires in history and maintaining it against continuous invasions and rebellions for 880 years a failure. I guess you have some pretty high standards.
You have to understand that much of what you know about the Achaemenids comes to you from a Greco-Roman perspective. (which of course is not going to be unbiased.)
I really suggest you do more research into the Achaemenid Emporers, the Persian military of the time, and read about the different military campaigns that the Persians conducted. I think you will be surprised.

By the same standards of course, you can accuse the Romans of being failures. The Roman Empire survived as a single entity only some ~350 years. (not that impressive when you compare it to the Achaemenids.)
The Romans continuously throughout their history suffered major military defeats, and just kept turning out men. Even the greatest Empires in history will suffer defeats, you understand (and Rome suffered some really inexcusable ones...), but you also have to look at their victories.
If you look only at the defeats of either the Romans or the Persians you will probably go away thinking that they were a pretty pathetic excuse for an Empire. When you look at their victories though, and the things they were able to achieve, you gain a clearer picture of them.