Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/57

MUSTER OF THE ARMY OF XERXES. 33 native Persians of noble blood, who distributed the various na- tive contingents into companies of thousands, hundreds, and tens. The forty-six nations composing the land-force were as follows : Persians, Medes, Kissians, Hyrkanians, Assyrians, Baktrians, Sakce, Indians, Arians, Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, Gan- darians, Dadikge, Kaspians, Sarangce, Paktyes, Utii, Myki, Pari- kanii, Arabians, Ethiopians in Asia and Ethiopians south of Egypt, Libyans, Paphlagonians, Ligyes, Matieni, Mariandyni, Syrians, Phrygians, Armenians, Lydians, Mysians, Thracians, Kabelians, Mares, Kolchians, Alarodians, Saspeires, Sao^artii. The eight nations who furnished the fleet were : Phenicians, three hundred ships of war ; Egyptians, two hundred ; Cypriots, one hundred and fifty ; Kilikians, one hundred ; Pamphyhans, thirty ; Lykians, fifty ; Karians, seventy ; Ionic Greeks, one hun- dred ; Doric Greeks, thirty ; ^olic Greeks, sixty ; Hellespontic Greeks, one hundred ; Greeks from the islands in the ^gean, seventeen ; in all one thousand two hundi'ed and seven triremes, or ships of war, with three banks of oars. The descriptions of costume and arms which we find in Herodotus are curious and varied ; but it is important to mention that no nation except the Lydians, Pamphylians, Cypriots and, Karians (partially also the Egyptian marines on shipboard) bore arms analogous to those of the Greeks (i. e. arms fit for steady conflict and sustained charge,^ — for hand combat in line as well as for defence of the person, — but inconveniently heavy either in pursuit or in flight) ; while the other nations were armed with missile weapons, — light shields of wicker or leather, or no shields at all, — turbans or leather caps instead of helmets, — swords, and scythes. They were not properly equipped either for fighting in regular order or for resisting the line of spears and shields which the Grecian hoplites brought to bear upon them ; their persons too were much less protected against wounds than those of the latter ; some of them indeed, as the Mysians and Libyans, did not even carry spears, but only staves with the end hardened in the fire.^ A nomadic tribe of Persians, called Sagartii, to the number of eight thousand horsemen, came armed only with a dagger and with the rope known in South America as the lasso, which they cast in ' Herodot. vii, 89-93. '^ Herodot. vii, 61-81. VOL. V. 2* 3oc.