Achaemenian reenactment

[MeinPanzer]

You didn't address my second point namely: Is "Ionians/Greeks who bear [leather?] shields" really a distinctive name or even an appropriate name for any group? Couldn't there be "Baktrians who bear [leather?] shields", "Egyptians who bear [leather?] shields", or "Saka who bear [leather?] shields", etc., etc. Just about every ancient people had leather shields. It is almost as universal as saying "Ionians/Greeks who have feet".

I'm not a linguist or an iranologist, so I can't comment directly on this debate, but this particular issue seems clearly resolved. "Greeks who bear leather shields" very well could be a group name if it distinguished them from other Greeks the Persians were aware of who used different kinds of shields. Since the majority of Greeks didn't normally bear leather shields, it is not implausible that the Macedonians (if this name is referring to the Macedonians) at this time were distinguished from them by their more Thracian-like use of small leather shields.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Is there direct evidence that the madeconians were equipped like Thracians ,meaning with peltes? Even so,thracian peltes seem to have been made by wicker,probably not even covered by leather some times.
More importantly, 6rh century bc macedonian graves bring up hoplite equipment,and bronze-faced hoplite shields. Hoplites might have been fewer in Macedonia than in Southern Greece,but even if there were small bodies of hoplites,wouldn't this characterise their armies? In fact,do we have any idea of the proportions of hoplites and light troops in other archaic armies?
And i dare say that the bronze archaic helmets that come from Macedonian graves are quite numerous!
Khaire
Giannis

[Wringher]

Hi, guys.

I just re-read the several paragraphs in Sekunda, Nicholas. ‘Achaemenid Military Terminology’. Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran, Volume 21 (1988), pp. 69-77 in which he discusses takabara on pages 75-76. Sekunda hypothesized that the root of taka is "skin, hide", which could certainly be applied to either a shield or hat, but he does say "taka- means shield and not hat".

I still don't think that the name Yauna Takabara as a Persian pun/joke ranks very high in my list of possible meanings -- not that Sean is necessarily suggesting that it is his first choice.

Here is another hypothesis on the meaning of taka written about a century ago in which Tolman mentions his first theory ("sea-faring") and then his current theory ("shelter-bearing"). I include this just to show that the meaning of the Old Persian taka has long puzzled scholars.

Tolman, Herbert Cushing. ‘Does yaun? takabar? (Dar. NRa) Signify 'Shield (i.e. Petasos)-wearing Ionians'?’. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Assocation, Volume 44 (1913)

p. liv: “As corresponding to the latter division I had suggested for takabara the interpretation "sea-faring" (YAv. taka, "water course" + bara, cf. asabari, Tolman, Lexicon, 91).

p. lv: “The Pers. taka might be derived from I. E. eiik > Skt. tank, " draw together," Lit. tdnkus, "thick." This root Ullenbach (Finym. Wb. 107) sees in Av. taxma, "strong," the same word, of course, which appears in the first element of Anc. Pers. name taxma-spada, " possessing army of heroes "; cf. Middle Pers. tak, Turfan Mss., tahmikd, New Pers. tahm. If such etymology be correct, taka might refer to a close defensive array of the Greek phalanx, which the Bab. version paraphrases as " shields borne on the head.” For the impression which such defence employed by Psammetichus made on the light-armed Egyptians, cf. Mallet, Les Premiers Etablissements des Grecs en Egypte, 38 ff. To the oriental the compact defensive armor of the Ionian troops would be a marked feature, and it would not be surprising if the epithet takabara had reference to this rather than to any mode of dress. In that case the word would signify "shelter-bearing."

Now on to Sean's question about who were the Yauna Takabara. Unfortunately, very few authors give it much attention. I looked at the books on my shelves here next to me at my computer as well as at the pdfs on my computer. Yauna Takabara and takabara by itself are not listed in most indexes (I don't like the word indices). For example: Pierre Briant. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN 2002. There are no listings in his 6 indexes in 1196 pages. However, I did manage to find several references to Yauna Takabara by browsing (see below). I had high hopes of finding some gems on the topic in Amélie Kuhrt. The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. (2 volumes). London 2007. Unfortunately, there is no listing in the index for either word.

Olmstead, A. T. History of the Persian Empire. Chicago 1948.
p. 44 = “Hellespontine Phrygia or Tyaiy Drayaha, ‘Those of the Sea’.”
p. 225 = “ ‘Those of the Sea’ became Yauna takabara, which the Babylonian version interpreted as the “Second Ionia whose inhabitants bore shields upon their head”—for thus were called the floppy petasos hats of the Greeks.”

Herzfeld, Ernst Emil. Persian Empire: Studies in Geography and Ethnography of the Ancient Near East. Edited from the posthumous papers by Gerold Walser. Wiesbaden 1968.
p. 349: “The sculptures leave no doubt that the Y?n? takabar? represent Macedonia.”

Cook, John Manuel. Persian Empire. London 1983.
p.59: “sun-hatted Yauna (presumably in Northern Greece or Macedonia)”

Cambridge History of Iran, volume 2: The Median and Achaemenian Periods. Edited by Ilya Gershevitch. Cambridge 1985.
Chapter by J. M. Cook p. 267: “… Greeks of either part or the whole of the land between Thessaly and the Black Sea; unfortunately the evidence does not suffice to show whether or not the Persians regarded the Macedonians at this time as Greeks.”

Balcer, Jack Martin. ‘Persian Occupied Thrace (Skudra)’. Historia : Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte, Volume 37, no. 1 (1st Quarter, 1988), pp. 1-21
p. 4: “the "Ionians wearing broad-brimmed hats’”
p. 5: “These broad brimmed Greeks in the north were, indeed, the patasos-wearing Macedonians.”

Dandamaev, Mukhammed A. A Political History of The Achaemenid Empire. Translated into English by W. J. Vogelsang. Leiden 1989.
p.151: “petasos-wearing Ionians” = “several Greek cities along the northern coast of the Aegean” plus “other subject peoples” Two paragraphs down, he states that Skudra consisted of Macedonia and Thrace

Briant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN 2002.
no listing in his 6 indexes in 1196 pages.
p.905 = “Yauna ‘with a hat in the shape of a shield’ (Yaun? takabar?; DNa)” -- Briant is noncommittal, but refers to Thrace in the works of others.
p. 173 = “Ionians who wear/bear the “Petasus” (a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat).”

Cawkwell, George. The Greek Wars: The Failure of Persia. Oxford 2005.
p. 52 = Macedonia = “the ‘Ionians wearing the petasos’ (Yauna takabara)”

Fortunately, I was able to cut and paste out of my bibliography database and out of the pdfs or otherwise compiling the above would have been really odious.

Anyway, it is easy to get bogged down in all of the details and theories and forget my main point, which is that the meanings of *sparabara and takabara are debatable despite statements that make it appear that without any doubt takabara meant "light shield-bearers" or something similar and that there was definitely a known Persian troop type called takabara. Both of those points are extremely speculative. Personally, I would call the takabara troop type wild fantasy.

I agree its a pity that lots of people think that *sparabara were definitely troops with big rectangular sticks-and-leather shields, and that takabara were definitely soldiers with small shields.

So, Ruben when you commented "I'm not a linguist or an iranologist, so I can't comment directly on this debate, but this particular issue seems clearly resolved.", which part exactly is clearly resolved?

[Sean Manning]

Is there direct evidence that the madeconians were equipped like Thracians ,meaning with peltes? Even so,thracian peltes seem to have been made by wicker,probably not even covered by leather some times.
More importantly, 6rh century bc macedonian graves bring up hoplite equipment,and bronze-faced hoplite shields. Hoplites might have been fewer in Macedonia than in Southern Greece,but even if there were small bodies of hoplites,wouldn't this characterise their armies? In fact,do we have any idea of the proportions of hoplites and light troops in other archaic armies?
And i dare say that the bronze archaic helmets that come from Macedonian graves are quite numerous!
Khaire
Giannis

Those are some good questions. Are these hoplite graves in lowland or highland Macedonia? The Persians definitely knew Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenecian, Egyptian, Carian, and Ionian hoplites, so by itself the fact that a nation had hoplites would not be too unusual to them.

A typical 5th century army was half light troops and half hoplites, but most of the light troops (servants) weren't very well armed by this period. I don't know enough about 6th century warfare to guess what the ratios looked like then. Part of it depends when you think hoplites began to fight in ranks and files and pushed out the light troops who had fought among them in Tyrtaeus' day.

I think Reuben's point is good: the name Yauna Takabara distinguishes these Yauna from the ones on the Persian side of the sea, and the ones on the other side of the sea. The Achaemenids liked ethnic stereotypes: their vision of the empire was a collection of well defined nations with distinctive local customs, products, and clothing. So even if the Macedonians had some men with big round shields and bronze armour, the fact that they typically fought with small shields could have been enough to distinguish them from other Yauna. But I agree that what taka means is speculative, beyond that it has something to do with a hat or shield.

Anyway, it is easy to get bogged down in all of the details and theories and forget my main point, which is that the meanings of *sparabara and takabara are debatable despite statements that make it appear that without any doubt takabara meant "light shield-bearers" or something similar and that there was definitely a known Persian troop type called takabara. Both of those points are extremely speculative. Personally, I would call the takabara troop type wild fantasy.

What do you mean exactly? Its a fact that Persian armies included formations of men with small shields and spears or javelins, and that they became more common in the 4th century BCE. Whether they should be called peltophoroi or takabara or targeteers can be debated, but I thought we agreed that the word describes a real phenomenon.

[MeinPanzer]

Is there direct evidence that the madeconians were equipped like Thracians ,meaning with peltes? Even so,thracian peltes seem to have been made by wicker,probably not even covered by leather some times.

This seems like splitting hairs; they probably were normally covered with leather.

More importantly, 6rh century bc macedonian graves bring up hoplite equipment,and bronze-faced hoplite shields. Hoplites might have been fewer in Macedonia than in Southern Greece,but even if there were small bodies of hoplites,wouldn't this characterise their armies? In fact,do we have any idea of the proportions of hoplites and light troops in other archaic armies?
And i dare say that the bronze archaic helmets that come from Macedonian graves are quite numerous!

The rich hoplite graves that have been excavated come almost exclusively from near Pella, which was well-known as the most important site in late Archaic and early Classical Macedonia, meaning that they probably represent a tiny proportion of elite warriors in a sizeable kingdom. And I would in fact argue that their lack of hoplites would have characterised the Macedonian army: if the normal Ionian/southern Greek army at this time was dominated by hoplites, then the Persians probably saw a lack of hoplites as being particularly distinctive. We don't know much about the early Macedonian army, but we do know that they were not known for fielding hoplites.

So, Ruben when you commented "I'm not a linguist or an iranologist, so I can't comment directly on this debate, but this particular issue seems clearly resolved.", which part exactly is clearly resolved?

The part where you asked "is 'Ionians/Greeks who bear [leather?] shields' really a distinctive name or even an appropriate name for any group." It certainly could be, if it distinguished these Yauna from others who didn't regularly bear leather shields.

[Wringher]

What do you mean exactly? Its a fact that Persian armies included formations of men with small shields and spears or javelins, and that they became more common in the 4th century BCE. Whether they should be called peltophoroi or takabara or targeteers can be debated, but I thought we agreed that the word describes a real phenomenon.

I hope this makes more sense: Personally, I would call the use of the term takabara for any Persian troop type wild fantasy since we don't know what taka means and because the only recorded uses of the Old Persian term takabara are as a description of some unidentified Ionian/Greek people.

Our knowledge of the Achaimenian Persian army over the centuries is frustratingly very fragmentary. I don't know that I would say that "Its a fact that Persian armies included formations of men with small shields and spears or javelins, and that they became more common in the 4th century BCE." Isn't it possible that the highest percentage of such troops in a Persian army was back in the early days of Cyrus the Great when a large part or possibly most of his army conceivably consisted of lightly armed tribal levies? I would also guess that the armies of Darius the Great and Xerxes included a lot of lightly armed troops with small shields and spears or javelins especially from the mountainous areas of the empire. So, I wouldn't say what Sean said in the above quote, not because he is wrong, but because I think that the evidence is too disjointed and meagre. Perhaps, the key to Sean's comment is the word "formations" as in troops drawn up for close order melee. I look forward to learning the "facts" and I'm not being in the least bit sarcastic. I hope to find out something I don't presently know or think about what I know in a different way. Thanks for the discussion.