Please read all the way through for a clear understanding of the following article.
I've always found it a bit unfortunate that much of the attention media and even reenactors pay to the Graeco-Persian Wars have been focused on only half a dozen major battles: Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale. While a broad understanding of the events leading up to Darius' invasion can be found in the pages of pop history books like
Persian Fire, for many writers the wars seem to come to an abrupt end with the defeat of Xerxes' invasion of mainland Greece. Even the period of 490-479 BCE saw multiple sieges and battles at Naxos, Eretria, Karystos, Talisca, Potidaea and Olynthus. Herodotus covered the wars up to the siege of Sestos; the next year, the Peloponnesians and Athenians sailed as far away as Byzantium and Cyprus. The Wars of the Delian League stretched on into the middle of the fifth century and went even farther afield, winding down with the Greeks' failed invasion of Egypt, which many historians mark as the actual end of the Graeco-Persian Wars proper. Why exactly so much of the history hasn't held so much fascination for the rest of us isn't totally clear to me. I suppose part of it has to do with most of the major battles being seen as "turning points," but that's not even true for all of them, like Artemisium.
The Battle of Talisca is one of my favorites. It took place almost as far from Greece as the Siege of Memphis two decades later. It was an aberration: Both armies were isolated, far out of their element, and almost certainly neither actually wanted to fight in a region which neither the Greeks nor Persians ever tried to invade, but I find it all the more interesting because of that. Our chief period source on it is Eurypylus of Miletus (449-394 BCE) who wrote
Historia tou Europas ("Inquiries about Europe," or "History of Europe") in or around 415. There is, however, a possible corroboration to be found among the Persepolis Fortification Archive.
According to Eurypylus, after the Battle of Salamis, several Greek and Persian ships were driven northward by a storm up the western coasts of Greece. Their crews beached them on the northern Adriatic shores and disembarked in search of food and directions. The Persians, learning of the Greeks' presence, pursued them, or possibly it was the other way around. Alternately, the two groups ran into each other through blind chance after trying to avoid each other for as long as possible. In any event, they had wandered deep into Europe by the time they finally met in the highlands of what is now Provincia, populated at the time by the Paraseticae.
The Paraseticae were an Indo-European people speaking a language possibly related to Celtic, Illyrian or Germanic. They were an impoverished tribe who subsisted on small farming, herding (mainly of sheep and goats, with small numbers of cattle), and stealing things from their lowland neighbors. Nonetheless the "prince" or chief of the Paraseticae, Golbrantes, sent messengers to two villages telling them to welcome the invaders separately. Eurypylus thinks that Golbrantes had the idea of getting the two armies to fight to the death and then pillaging the dead, but it didn't exactly turn out that way.
War was not the Paraseticae's strong suite. The nearest thing they had to armies were sort of like parties of land-Vikings, but more poorly equipped. They relied on dashing in and overwhelming isolated herders or homesteads, grabbing loot and fleeing back into the highlands while doing as little fighting as possible, and robbing travelers. On top of being too disorganized and few in number to form armies with any clout, one of the most important factors in their inability to wage war was noted by Eurypylus and even Roman writers hundreds of years later to be their limited supply of decent timber trees. The most common tree in Provincia is the so-called brittle oak, whose wood disintegrates when dry and today is a common component of pulp for toilet paper. Most useable wood was used up for looms, tool handles, certain structural parts of houses (other components were made of mud or stone, with thatched roofs), and other places where nothing else would work. As a result their spears were small, thrown javelins were rare because of the risk of breakage and loss, edged weapons usually had grips of bone or horn, and most shields were either hide or woven grass - even wicker or Asian pseudo-wicker are unachievable without a decent resilient wood.
Archaeological finds show one thing the Paraseticae had which other peoples in the vicinity lacked: vegetable-tanned leather. It was probably made with the country's plentiful supply of brittle oak galls and bark saved as a byproduct of firewood and charcoal. (They also made cookies and dessert porridge with "barley honey," as Eurypylus calls it, produced by the same mashing process as was used to make beer - in other words, malt syrup.) I tooled this belt with Hallstatt-type motifs and finished it with oil and beeswax; no dye is necessary. Belts were said to be laced rather than buckled; Professor Cabrioletta suggested the method you see above.
The Paraseticae didn't have a whole lot of metal, either. The largest edged weapons ever excavated from the period are less than 20 inches overall, and no spearheads exceeding the size of a large javelin have been found that aren't of obviously foreign construction. It's possible that relatively wealthy headmen would have been able to equip themselves with looted arms (Provincia borders on areas of the late Hallstatt and La Tene cultures) but the average raider - terms like "soldier" or even "warrior" are not justifiable here - would've been underequipped by the standards of the poorest Greek or Roman skirmisher. No evidence of archery has ever been found in Provincia pre-dating the late Roman period.
There are two main types and five subtypes of knives known from the early Iron Age of Provincia. Type I had a ring pommel resembling the kind used by neighboring La Tene Celts. Type Ia tended to be slightly larger with a full-profile tang and bone or horn grips, while type Ib had a narrower, thicker tang with no rivet holes and likely would've been wound with cord or leather as a grip. The larger types are probably derived from Hallstatt long knives. Archaeologist Mariul DiMentato dubbed these "fighting knives," though he acknowledged that type IIa was likely mainly intended as a butcher knife and machete, while still able to function as a sidearm for commoners. The much rarer type IIb has a longer, proportionally narrower blade reminiscent of a Khyber knife, and is more likely a true combat weapon, with a thickened spine often exceeding 8mm. It includes the most elaborate and one of the largest knives, the "Vicito sword," which has, unusually, a bronze guard. With the flowing lines of its decorative carving, it dates from somewhat later - perhaps around the turn of the fourth century, by which point the Paraseticae had begun absorbing elements of the more graceful La Tene style. Not pictured: the type IIc, a long thin-bladed knife possibly used for filleting and deboning. Illustrations from DiMentato's "Cultri in Ata di Ferro in Provincia," 1957.
Atlanta Cutlery sells a large "companion" blade which is quite similar to the DiMentato type I. I wanted to give mine bone grips, but I find bone in many ways too irritating to work with: difficult to find in sufficiently large pieces, prone to chipping unless worked slowly, and producing a lingering stench when ground, along with dust which is dangerous to inhale. Instead I used castelo boxwood for a similar pale color.
Hilt carvings throughout the period were highlighted with ochre and/or bone char. The carvings are functional - they make the knife much easier to grip when performing a slashing blow. I also ground a simple ring-pommel knife out of mild steel, with poplar grips. The paint on both hilts is simple red ochre and linseed oil, which dries quite hard. The spear is a forged small spear/javelin head from Lord of Battles, via Kult of Athena, mounted on a four-foot rake handle from Ace that I sanded and refinished with linseed oil. The handle is attached to the shield by grinding it flat on the ends so that it won't rotate, and adding small grooves that the waxed hemp cord is lashed around. Just two grooves are needed at each end.
Still, both the Persians and Greeks managed to recruit a number of native allies or mercenaries, mostly overenthusiastic young people who failed to understand Golbrantes' plan. Guided by the chief's messengers, the two armies converged near the main village Talisca (Taliske), near modern Capotina, around October 13 or 14, 480. Their scouts reported the enemy ahead, with the Persians in the north (or west) and Greeks in the south (or east). That night, several raiding parties avoided each other and snuck into the oppositions' camps. The Persians managed to return unnoticed, carrying off the Athenian captain Apollodorus' favorite blanket. The Greek sortie managed to get as far as smashing some wine bottles that the Persian captain Mithraphernes of Hyrcania had been hoarding for himself. The sound alerted some sentries, but in the dark the javelineers failed to hit the fleeing hoplites.
Eurypylus says that the Paraseticae used small shields of woven grass or leather, without porpakes, and their "princes" had shields with bronze bosses. In high-status graves, the bosses and pins are the only parts of shields that remain even when iron spearheads and knives are also found, indicating that the shields were otherwise wholly organic. The grass shields were exceedingly ineffective. Pictured: Pottery painting showing one raider TK'ing another while their leader is astounded by a dancing woodwose, or something like that. Let's face it, these people were crazy. Scan from Le Parasetici (1994) by Petrul Beolos.
My attempt at a leather shield has been at a standstill since I've been unable to mold the dome high enough to fill the metal boss. As such, I've left the leather pinned to its wooden mold, which has loops of rope nailed and glued on to form the ridges. I forged the boss from 14-gauge jeweler's brass. BCCC lab tech Nick Hesson shaped a wooden grip for me (no bone or metal ones have ever been found in association with shield bosses) and I hand-cut some washers with the intention of setting the grips with long copper rivets.
The next morning the two armies went ahead and fought just east (or north) of Talisca. Again, both groups were out of their element. Talisca itself was well-defended behind a narrow, fortified pass, so neither force attempted to lodge themselves inside the village, but the uneven and thickly forested ground hindered the hoplites as well as the Persian archers and Phoenician javelineers, while the Paraseticae mercenaries mostly just attacked each other. After fighting all morning with few casualties and no one managing to hold ground, the two groups withdrew to their camps.
No wheel-thrown pottery has been found that appears to have made in Provincia until the Medieval period. The vast majority was pinched, coiled or slab-built. This bowl was made for me by Deb Dayhoff of Earth2Table. It's glazed only on the inside; pottery at this time was normally burnished to make it a bit more watertight, rather than glazed, but only glazing meets modern food safety standards. The horn spoon is from Crazy Crow Trading Post.
Bone-beaded fibulae and necklace with waxed hemp cord, and pieced leather bag made of thin buckskin as a substitute for goat and sheep leather.
At this time one of Mithraphernes' personal retainers, an archer named Aricaspes, convinced him that a mutual retreat would be in their best interests. The opposing captains secretly met in the forest nearer to Talisca and worked out routes back to the Adriatic coast that would avoid their forces crossing paths again. Apollodorus returned to the Peloponnese by the middle of November. Eurypylus says nothing more of the Persian forces, but it's interesting to note that one of the Persepolis administrative tablets, dating to the tenth regnal year of Xerxes (i.e. 477 BCE), is signed by an Arikaašba of Mirkaniya (the Elamite name for Hyrcania). It's possible that this is actually the archer Aricaspes, having returned home and taken up, or more likely resumed, a job as a bureaucrat at Mithraphernes' estate in Hyrcania. Certainly *Arikaspa would be an unusual, though obviously Iranian, name; it appears to mean "whose horse(s) is evil" or simply "bad horse."
(left) My reconstruction of a Paraseticae raider. (right) Seal of Arikaašba.
Note (April 3, 2024): It's come to my attention that I may have been too deadpan when composing this article. So, just to be crystal clear about what's going on here:
APRIL FOOL'S!
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