Apr 02
Historical Illustrations
12 comments posted by legofish at 11:18 AM
A kind reader (Farhad) has sent us some images from the book the Greek and Persian Wars 500-323 BC containing illustrations of Ancient Greek and Persian soldiers. The accuracy of these have been contested in some reviews, but they're still nice to look at.
I was looking at some similar historical illustraion books last week and I found a few: Rome's Enemies (3): Parthians and Sassanid Persians (Illustrations by Peter Wilcox), Sassanian Elite Cavalry Ad 224-642 (illustrations by Angus Mcbride), and The Persian Army 560-330 Bc (illustrations by Simon Chew). I have ordered these and will let you know how good they are when I receive them.
Thank you for posting these. One thing is common to all the illustrations: the soldiers are all humans, and not some weird out-of-this-world creatures as Persians were depicted in the movie 300. Anyhow, it goes without saying that the Persian army was indeed very well organized and sophisticated at the time, and such illustrations - although disputed on accuracy - shed some light on this matter.