Takabarâ in O.P.

[Dan D'Silva]

You should ask the modders for their sources, most Rome: Total War modders take pride in Historical Accuracy and I'm sure they would be happy to share their sources with you.

Good idea. I'll try to do that.

Also, I'm moving it now.

Thanks.

The modder's description of the Persian army is not in perfect English, so perhaps he is being misunderstood.

Interesting...

The fellow at the bottom talking about tabar makes me wonder if there might be a missing link somewhere. If it's the case Sekunda, rather than any period source, is the origin of the "type of soldier" definition of takabara, then maybe what happened next is that someone, unaware of the actual origin and Sekunda's etymological work, saw the word being used in this sense and connected it with the name of Tabarestan.

Of course the problem is that most of what people have to say about the subject is completely free of citations, so it's really hard to get at the evidence. Actually the current Wikipedia article does cite Sekunda's The Persian Army for its claim that takabara were peltasts. I can check out Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran if I visit my aunt in Princeton in the near future but the nearest copy of The Persian Army is in Bryn Mawr and I just can't find an excuse to visit there, so maybe I will have to order a copy.