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30-427: Athanatoi (Ancient Greek: Ἀθάνατοι ) or Athanati literally mean "immortals", and may refer to: Immortals (Achaemenid Empire) Immortals (Sasanian Empire) Immortals (Byzantine Empire) See also [ edit ] Immortal (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

60-714: A battalion of Chieftain tanks . Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ended the Imperial State of Iran and the Pahlavi dynasty , the "Immortal Guard" was disbanded. The signature shield of the Achaemenid Empire 's Immortals has been adopted in the insignia of the 65th Airborne Special Forces Brigade and the 55th Airborne Brigade of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army . Herodotus' account of two warrior elites—the hoplites of Sparta and

90-604: A bodyguard, in direct attendance of the monarch, had already been allocated to a select thousand-strong detachment of the unit. The first re-occurrence of the word "Immortals" is in Roman historians' description of an elite cavalry unit in the army of the Sasanian Empire . Primary sources suggest that they numbered around 10,000 men in accordance with tradition, with the main formational difference being that they were heavy cavalry . However, recent scholarship has doubted

120-561: A clever strategy. The Egyptians regarded certain animals, especially cats, as being sacred (they had a cat goddess named Bastet ), and would not injure them on any account. Polyaenus claims that Cambyses had his men carry the "sacred" animals in front of them to the attack. The Egyptians did not dare to shoot their arrows for fear of wounding the animals, and so Pelusium was stormed successfully. This would be an early form of psychological warfare . Herodotus, however, makes no mention of any such strategy, and "gives hardly any information" about

150-564: A council man and advisor to Amasis, an unknown course of events led to bitterness developing between them to the point that Amasis sent an Egyptian eunuch after Phanes, pursuing him to Lydia . Phanes was captured in Lycia but outwitted his guards by getting them drunk and escaped to Persia, and assisted the Persian king in all manners of strategy, and was instrumental in shaping his resolve for conquest of Egypt. Despite having full control over

180-529: A daughter in marriage, knowing how Amasis would dislike losing his daughter to a Persian. Cambyses complied, requesting the hand of the daughter of Amasis in marriage. Amasis, unable to let go of his offspring, and unwilling to start a conflict with the Persians, instead sent an Egyptian girl named Nitetis, who was a daughter of an Egyptian named Apries . According to Herodotus, Apries was the previous pharaoh whom Amasis had defeated and killed, and whose daughter

210-466: A last attempt to bring an end to the struggle, sent a Persian herald in a ship to exhort the Egyptians to give up before further bloodshed. Upon sighting the Persian vessel at the port of Memphis, the Egyptians ran out, attacking the ship and killing every man in it, carrying their torn limbs with them back to the city. As Cambyses advanced to Memphis, it is said that for every Mytilenian killed during

240-592: A revolt against the Persians. The fields around were strewn with the bones of the combatants when Herodotus visited. He noted that the skulls of the Egyptians were distinguishable from those of the Persians by their superior hardness, a fact confirmed he said by the mummies, and which he ascribed to the Egyptians' shaving their heads from infancy, and to the Persians covering them up with folds of cloth or linen. Polyaenus , "a retired Macedonian general more interested in novelty than historical accuracy," claims that, according to legend, Cambyses captured Pelusium by using

270-691: A sea of skulls at the Nile basin, upon the remnants of which he remarks on the differences between the Persian and the Egyptian heads. According to Ctesias , fifty thousand Egyptians fell, whereas the entire loss on the Persian side was only seven thousand. After this short struggle, the troops of Psamtik fled, and soon the retreat became a complete rout. Disoriented, and fleeing, the Egyptians took shelter in Memphis . The Egyptians were now besieged in their stronghold of Memphis. According to Herodotus, Cambyses, in

300-468: Is believed to have been a conical or rounded metal on top and scale or chains on the sides, resembling a ridge helmet or Phrygian cap ; surviving Achaemenid coloured glazed bricks and carved reliefs represent the Immortals as wearing elaborate robes, hoop earrings, and gold jewellery, although these garments and accessories were most likely worn only for ceremonial occasions. The Persian denomination of

330-697: Is suggested that Herodotus' informant confused the word anûšiya- ( lit.   ' companion ' ) with anauša- ( lit.   ' immortal ' ), but this theory has been criticized by German linguist Rüdiger Schmitt . The Immortals played an important role in the Achaemenid conquest of Egypt under Cambyses II in 525 BCE, as well as in the Achaemenid conquest of Indus Valley ( western Punjab and Sindh , now located in Pakistan ) and European Scythia under Darius I in c.  518 BCE and 513 BCE, respectively. They also notably participated in

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360-574: The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE during the Greco-Persian Wars and were amongst the Persian troops who occupied Greece in 479 BCE under Mardonius . During the final decades of the Achaemenid Empire , the role expected of the Immortals' hazarapatish ( lit.   ' one thousand overseer ' ) was extended to include that of chief minister to the King of Kings . The provision of

390-533: The Neo-Babylonian empire and its sub-regions including northern Arabia, Cambyses sent a message to the King of Arabia requesting safe passage through the desert road from Gaza to Pelusium. The Arabian king, himself an enemy of Amasis and glad to facilitate his destruction, granted safe passage to Cambyses and even supplied him with troops. According to Polybius , even with all the precautions taken on entering

420-531: The Achaemenid Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt . It was fought in 525 BC near Pelusium , an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt 's Nile Delta , 30 km to the south-east of the modern Port Said . The battle was preceded and followed by sieges at Gaza and Memphis . The most common recounting of the events leading to the battle of Pelusium is from Greek historians , particularly Herodotus . According to Herodotus,

450-572: The Immortals as heavy infantry led by the Persian military commander Hydarnes the Younger ; they provided the professional corps of the Achaemenid army and numbered exactly 10,000 men. He stated that the unit's name stemmed from the fact that every dead, seriously wounded, or sick Immortal was immediately replaced with a new one, maintaining the corps as a cohesive entity with a constant strength. Xenophon ( Cyropaedia 6.4.1; 7.1.2) describes

480-523: The Immortals of Persia —facing each other in battle has inspired a set of fanciful depictions of the battle, especially with regard to the Immortals: Battle of Pelusium The Battle of Pelusium was the first major battle between the Achaemenid Empire and Egypt . This decisive battle transferred the throne of the Pharaohs to Cambyses II of Persia , marking the beginning of

510-415: The Persians. Psamtik, in a violent act of revenge prior to the confrontation with the Persian army, arrested all the sons of Phanes and stood them between two bowls. He then cut them one by one, draining their blood and mixing it with wine. Psamtik then drank of it and made every other councilman drink their blood before the battles. The decisive military conflict happened at Pelusium. As Herodotus describes

540-581: The Roman description of the force, including their name, their size, and that they were modeled on the Achaemenid Immortals, although there may have been one or more of such distinct elite cavalry units during the Sasanian period. Their task was mainly to secure any breakthroughs and to enter battles at crucial stages. The designation "Immortal" to describe a military unit was used twice during

570-481: The border of Egypt, only the city of Gaza resisted the Persians, which fell after a long siege. When the news of the impending battle reached Egypt, Psamtik III (Psammenitus), son and heir of Amasis II, gathered the Egyptian army, stationing it along the fork of the Red Sea and the river Nile . Amasis himself had died six months before Cambyses reached Egypt. Psamtik had hoped that Egypt would be able to withstand

600-408: The common soldiery were of silver; to differentiate commanding ranks, the officers' spear butt-spikes were of gold. The regiment was followed by a caravan of covered carriages, camels, and mules that transported their supplies, along with concubines and attendants to serve them; this supply train carried special food that was reserved only for their consumption. The headdress worn by the Immortals

630-518: The conflict between the Pharaoh Amasis II of Egypt and Cambyses II of Persia was a gradual process involving multiple personalities, mostly Egyptians. According to Herodotus, an Egyptian physician was requested by Cambyses from Amasis on good terms, to which Amasis complied. The physician (most likely an ancient ophthalmologist ) resented the forced labour that Amasis had imposed on him, and in retaliation, persuaded Cambyses to ask of Amasis

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660-652: The era of the Byzantine Empire : first as elite heavy cavalry under John I Tzimiskes ( r.  969–976 ) and then later under Nikephoritzes , the chief minister of Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas ( r.  1071–1081 ), as the core of a new central field army following the disastrous Byzantine defeat at Manzikert to the Seljuk Turks in 1071. During the 19th-century Napoleonic Wars , many French soldiers referred to Napoleon 's Imperial Guard as "the Immortals". Under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ,

690-577: The fighting in general. According to Herodotus, Cambyses initially behaved with a certain moderation, sparing the son of Psamtik due to feeling "a touch of pity", but later, dissatisfied with his victory and unable to punish the already deceased Amasis for his trickery, decided to commit what Herodotus calls an un-Persian act: he desecrated the tomb of the mummified Amasis and ordered the mummy burned. However, Pierre Briant concludes that Herodotus' recorded information regarding Cambyses' actions in Egypt after

720-487: The guard of Cyrus the Great as having bronze breastplates and helmets, while their horses wore chamfrons and peitrels of bronze together with shoulder pieces that also protected the rider's thighs. Herodotus instead describes their armament as follows: wicker shields covered in leather, short spears, quivers, swords or large daggers, slings , and bows and arrows. They wore coats of scale armour . The spear counterbalances of

750-662: The last Shah of Iran , the Imperial Iranian Army included an all-volunteer known as the Javidan Guard ( Persian : گارد جاویدان , romanized :  Gârd-e Jâvidân , lit.   ' Immortal Guard ' ), named after the ancient Persian royal guard. The Javidan Guard was based at the Lavizan Barracks in Tehran . By 1978, this elite force comprised a brigade of 4,000–5,000 men, including

780-403: The siege of Memphis, ten Egyptians died, which makes the number of dead Egyptians two thousand, who may have been executed at the time or after the siege, because two hundred Mytileneans were killed. Pelusium probably surrendered itself immediately after the battle. The pharaoh was captured after the fall of Memphis and allowed to live under Persian watch. He later committed suicide after attempting

810-555: The threat of the Persian attack by an alliance with the Greeks , but this hope failed, as the Cypriot towns and the tyrant Polycrates of Samos , who possessed a large fleet, now preferred to join the Persians. That one of Egypt's most prominent tactical advisers, Phanes of Halicarnassus, had already gone over to the Persian side meant that Psamtik was entirely dependent on his own limited military experience. Polycrates sent 40 triremes to

840-549: The title Athanatoi . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Athanatoi&oldid=1255125402 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Immortals (Achaemenid Empire) Herodotus describes

870-410: The unit is uncertain. This elite force is only referred to as the "Immortals" in sources based on Herodotus. There is evidence from Persian sources of the existence of a permanent corps, which provided a backbone for the tribal levies (raised by satraps ) who, together with increasing numbers of mercenaries, made up the bulk of the Achaemenid army. However these do not record the name of "Immortals"; it

900-405: Was now to be sent in place of Amasis's own offspring. Once greeted by Cambyses as "the daughter of Amasis", Nitetis explained the trickery employed by Amasis to avoid giving away his own daughter to the king. This infuriated Cambyses, who vowed to avenge the insult. According to Herodotus, another motivation that solidified Cambyses's expedition into Egypt was Phanes of Halicarnassus . Originally

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