Top 10 Horrifying Facts about PERSIAN IMMORTALS!

The Name, According to Greek Historian, Herodotus, the Immortals always had 10,000 men in their unit, no more and no less. If one died, or got sick, or something else went wrong, he was immediately replaced by another soldier. This gave the impression that the unit was full of immortal beings, because their numbers never dwindled. In order to become an Immortal, the warrior had to be Persian born and training started at an early age. When a space opened up in the Immortal unit, the leaders picked from the best soldiers from the lower groups of warriors, which were the Sparabara and the Takabara. Besides ranking below the Immortals, not much is known about either group.

Their Size of the Persian Army, Compared to some of their enemies, like the Greeks, the Persians didn’t have the best weapons. While they scaled armor, they used shields made from wood and wicker, which wasn’t much help against something like the Spartans’ swords and spears. Instead of relying on the strength of their weapons, the Persians tried to intimidate their enemies with the sheer size of their army, which Herodotus said was 3 million strong under Xerxes. However, modern day researchers do not think that figure is anywhere close to correct. It was actually probably more like 70,000 infantry and 9,000 horsemen, which is still a massive number of soldiers. Also travelling with the army were caravans with concubines and servants that the Immortals were allowed to bring along with them, which would have made the advancing army look even bigger. Based on the size of their army alone, some cities surrendered upon seeing the Persian forces advance towards them.

Training, The training of Persian Immortals was difficult and it started early. From birth, boys were kept separate from their fathers until the age of five, then they would be taken to start their warrior training. It involved a wide range of skill development, including archery, fighting, how to live off the land, they practiced standing guard, they trained for arduous marches, and finally every Persian boy in training needed to know how to tame a wild horse. They would enter military service when they were 15-years-old and would remain a soldier until the age of 50 when they could finally retire, providing they lived that long. Once they entered military service, they either became foot soldiers or cavalry, but it wasn’t a permanent placement as the most skilled veterans were able to serve in both units. The soldiers were also trained in both archery and hand-to-hand combat, which maximized the effectiveness of their already overwhelmingly massive army.

Source: YouTube by Top Tenz