Achaemenid vaguely uniformed

[Jim Webster]

I started thinking after reading Duncan's excellent article on Cunaxa. Where he quotes Plutarch commenting that all Cyrus's men wore crimson tunics over their armour and Artaxerxes's men wore white tunics. It's an entirely sensible way of ensuring that both sides could tell who everybody was. Also I remember him commenting that cap colour might be uniform within a unit (in Armies of the Macedonian and Punic wars).

Then pondering what I've read from the various Babylonian clay tablets. A lot of the men sent to join the army were equipped with 'jerkins'. It stuck me that we be seeing an element of uniformity within these contingents, with them having jerkins of 'almost' the same colour.
Whilst not suggesting a 'standard uniform', I wonder if there was some elements of uniformity within the army. Especially perhaps among the lower social status troops.

[Ian61]

Makes a lot if sense to me. The colour pallet would however have been not particularly wide.

 I'm not sure if any one here has read Mary Gentle's 'Grunts' but in that the orcs decide to colour code their units but almost all want Black/raven/sable etc. although they were a bit worried about the lot that went for pink! (I can't quote it properly because I lent it out about 10 years ago, oh well).

[dwkay57]

If you are all similarly dressed and armed on both sides of the battlefield then some way of avoiding "blue on blue" casualties would seem sensible.

Historically accurate or not, giving each of my Persian satrapal armies a different colour scheme helps a lot at 6mm, especially when there are lots of them deployed.....

[Duncan Head]

I've pointed out before that there are one or two references to prizes being handed out for the officer or governor who brought the best-equipped contingent. To me, that implies variation in the standards of equipment - and probably in standards of uniformity. You might get one unit in fully uniform getup next to another in issued cap and shield but their own clothes, perhaps.

Apart from the obvious Susa glazed-brick immortals, the only native Achaemenid representation I can think of with multiple soldiers in colour would be the Tatarli painted beam horse-archers, who are not in uniform colours.

(And just maybe the infantrymen at the left edge of the Miho Museum pectoral, but the second one in particular is so badly damaged you can't say much.)

[Adrian Nayler]

It may be worth noting that the Miho Museum pectoral is potentially problematic as doubts have been cast on its authenticity on a number of grounds. Some suspect it may be a modern counterfeit.

See Ellen Rehm (2021) The Achaemenid Empire and Forgery: Material Culture' in Jacobs, B. and Rollinger, R. (eds.) A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, volume 2, Wiley Blackwell (pp. 1555-1556).

[Duncan Head]

I can't say that I am convinced by Rehm's doubts.

In fact the oddity that really struck me - the fact that the 'Persians' in the battle scene appear to be wearing the long cutaway coats that are associated with Saka and Sogdians in the Persepolis reliefs - strikes me more as an argument for authenticity, since there is no model for a forger to copy.

[Jim Webster]

It has struck me that social status might militate against it. So higher status individuals like the cavalry are going to want to display their status and relative wealth and only a direct edict from above will deter them. Whereas for lower status individuals, a free issue jerkin is a free issue jerkin and not to be quibbled at.
Ironically if we visualise cavalry melees as somewhat intermixed (thinking here of the description of Alexander at Granicus) then you would be more in need of being able to reliably identify friends and foes than the PBI huddled in lines shooting arrows at each other.
So an issued cap and even a shield might well be adequate.
With the PBI you do at least get a chance to spot malingerers and potential deserters at a distance, unless they abandon their jerkin (Which could lead to pointed questions if they were then apprehended)

[DBS]

Also worth considering whether campaign dress matches battle dress?  For entry into a town, or for a big battle, chaps, especially cavalry and aristocracy, might well put on their best, but wear much more drab and varied kit on the dusty march.  Infantry probably march and fight in same tunic unless elites with baggage train support.  So Cyrus' lads when formed up at the start of the campaign might look quite smart and dashing, but be more disreputable by the time they have walked all the way to Cunaxa...