The Paighan were a militia light infantry

Light infantry

Traditionally light infantry were soldiers whose job was to provide a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry, harassing and delaying the enemy advance. Light infantry was distinct from medium, heavy or line infantry. Heavy infantry were dedicated primarily to fighting in tight...

 unit within the Sassanid army

Sassanid army

The birth of the Sassanid army dates back to the rise of Ardashir I , the founder of the Sassanid dynasty, to the throne. Ardashir aimed at the revival of the Persian Empire, and to further this aim, he reformed the military by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and whose...

 and formed the bulk of its infantry force. The Paighan were sometimes referred to as being used as "meat shields".

Recruitment

The Paighan were a conscription

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

 force, recruited from the peasant

Peasant

A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

 population of the Sassanian Empire. According to the Chronicon Anonymum, the vast majority (120,000) of Sassanian Emperor Khosrau I

Khosrau I

Khosrau I , also known as Anushiravan the Just or Anushirawan the Just Khosrau I (also called Chosroes I in classical sources, most commonly known in Persian as Anushirvan or Anushirwan, Persian: انوشيروان meaning the immortal soul), also known as Anushiravan the Just or Anushirawan the Just...

 Anushirvan's army of 183,000 was made up of Paighan. Despite being referred to as meat shields, the Paighan were frequently used in sieges and served as pages for their Savaran

Savaran cavalry

The Savārān cavalry were Persian military units and were a division of cavalry during the time of the Sassanid Persian dynasty; they ranged from light cavalry such as horse archers to heavy cavalry such as Cataphracts. Each Savārān unit would have had its own Drafsh...

 masters. These troops would generally have had the lowest morale of all troops in the Sassanian army and would cluster together for mutual protection. According to Arab historians, during the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah

Battle of al-Qadisiyyah

The Battle of al-Qādisiyyah was fought in 636; it was the decisive engagement between the Arab muslim army and the Sassanid Persian army during the first period of Muslim expansion. It resulted in the Islamic conquest of Persia, and was key to the conquest of Iraq...

 the Persian commander Rostam Farrokhzād

Rostam Farrokhzad

Rostam Farrokhzād was the Ērān Spāhbod of the Sāsānian Empire under the reign of Yazdgird, r. 632 - 651...

 refused to provide the Paighan troops with food and water the night before the battle. However, in the Arab camp all soldiers there were being provided with supplies, including the peasants. This may be the reason why many of the Paighan soldiers in the army defected to the Arab side before and after the battle.

Weapons

The Paighan were lightly armed with short light wood or wickerwork shields, boiled leather helmets and short spears. Some of the paighan would have however had to equip themselves with their own weapons. These tended to be agricultural equipment such as pitch forks, daggers, axes and sickles. The Paighan would have lacked decent armor, making them very vulnerable in hand to hand combat. They would have stood little chance against Roman troops. This is the reason why Sassanians developed their own heavy infantry to counter that of Rome's

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

.

Belisarius

Belisarius

Flavius Belisarius was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously....

' remarks on Sassanid troops:

In popular culture

In the strategy game Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion, the Sassanids have a unit of Paighan in the form of peasants. They are easily defeated in both melee and hand to hand combat.

See also

• Spahbod
  Spahbod
  Spahbod or Spahbed , is derived from the words Spah and bod ; or "Aspah'Paeity" , and means commander of cavaliers/ knights; alternatively Spah Salar was a rank used in the Parthian empire and more widely in the Sassanid Empire of Persia...
  
  
• Byzantine army
  Byzantine army
  The Byzantine army was the primary military body of the Byzantine armed forces, serving alongside the Byzantine navy. A direct descendant of the Roman army, the Byzantine army maintained a similar level of discipline, strategic prowess and organization...
  
  
• Late Roman army
  Late Roman army
  The Late Roman army is the term used to denote the military forces of the Roman Empire from the accession of Emperor Diocletian in 284 until the Empire's definitive division into Eastern and Western halves in 395. A few decades afterwards, the Western army disintegrated as the Western empire...
  
  
• Roman-Persian Wars
  Roman-Persian Wars
  The Roman–Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between states of the Greco-Roman world and two successive Iranic empires: the Parthian and the Sassanid. Contact between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic began in 92 BC; wars began under the late Republic, and continued...
  
  
• Derbent
  Derbent
  Derbent |Lak]]: Чурул, Churul; Persian: دربند; Judæo-Tat: דארבּאנד/Дэрбэнд/Dərbənd) is a city in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, close to the Azerbaijani border. It is the southernmost city in Russia, and it is the second most important city of Dagestan...
  
  , a surviving Sassanid fortress
• Persian war elephants
  Persian war elephants
  Persians used war elephants at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. The battle raged between king Alexander the Great of Macedon and king Darius III of Persia...
  
  
• Cataphract
  Cataphract
  A cataphract was a form of armored heavy cavalry utilised in ancient warfare by a number of peoples in Western Eurasia and the Eurasian Steppe....
  
  
• Savārān cavalry
  Savaran cavalry
  The Savārān cavalry were Persian military units and were a division of cavalry during the time of the Sassanid Persian dynasty; they ranged from light cavalry such as horse archers to heavy cavalry such as Cataphracts. Each Savārān unit would have had its own Drafsh...