Battle of Cunaxa Illustration

[Kai]

Paul,
In Mikhael V Gorelik's book,"Warriors of Eurasia, he has a Scythian warrior wearing similar chaps. Didn't the Persians adapt this practice from the Scythians..?

Thanks for the comments!

Johnny

Not necessarily. The heavy horsemen are clearly based on John Warry’s reconstruction of Kyros’ horse guard and I think, there are some possible mistakes in that reconstruction and I wrote a text long time ago on TWC (presenting my own model of that guard for RTW):


The main source for these men is Xenophon. Not only his ‘Anabasis’, in which he sees Kyros’ guard with his own eyes, but also other works, most notably the ‘Kyropaideia’. Although describing Kyros the Great, many of the descriptions have to be applied on Kyros the Younger, especially those about his companions’ arms and armour, representing early 4th cent.BC high-tech. Plutarch provides some info, too, but Diodor is rather worthless in comparison - as so often.

The rider is armoured with a bronze helmet and a cuirass (cf. Xen.Anab. I 8,6). The latter might be a Greek influenced type (cf. Diod. XIV 22,6), but has a throat guard (cf. Xen.Kyr. I 2,13). The Persian cavalry armour was very effective, often Greek spears simply could not penetrate it, but broke (cf. Xen.Hell. III 4,13; Plut.Aris. XIV 5). Missiles were stopped very effectively as well (cf. Plut.Arta.X 1f). The παραμηρίδια (cf. Xen.Anab. I 8,6) are not some kind of armoured trousers, as Warry reconstructs, but parts of the horse armour. A passage from the Kyropaideia is illustrating that: “Their horses were armed with frontlets, breast-pieces, and thigh-pieces (παραμηρίδια) of bronze; these served to protect the thighs of the rider as wellâ€