Immortals (Ancient Greek: Ἀθάνατοι, romanized: Athánatoi) or Persian Immortals was the name given by Herodotus to an elite heavy infantry unit of 10,000 soldiers in the army of the Achaemenid Empire. The unit served in a dual capacity through its role as imperial guard alongside its contribution to the ranks of the Persian Empire's standing army. While it primarily consisted of Persians, the Immortals force also included Medes and Elamites. 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 European Scythia under Darius I in c. 518 BCE and 513 BCE, respectively. They also notably participated in 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. 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. The designation "Immortal" to describe a military unit was used twice during 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). During the 19th-century Napoleonic Wars, many French soldiers referred to Napoleon's Imperial Guard as "the Immortals". (Credit: Immortals_(Achaemenid_Empire) , Immortals) [Image 1:Depiction of the "Susian guards"(Immortals) from the Palace of Darius in Susa. 2. Median (left) and Persian (right) warriors (Immortals) at Persepolis in Fars Province, Iran 3. French Grenadier of the Old Guard in 1813 4. Modern reconstruction of the Immortals 5. Tagmata military units of the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Lalakaon (863) ]
Iranian Civilization
