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Chapter 5 Apple Bearers and Kinsmen Cavalry: Guard Units of the Kings of Achaemenid Persia
Book chapter

Chapter 5 Apple Bearers and Kinsmen Cavalry: Guard Units of the Kings of Achaemenid Persia

Michael B Charles
Brill's companion to bodyguards in the ancient Mediterranean
Brill's companions to classical studies: warfare in the ancient Mediterranean world, Brill
2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004527683_006

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Abstract

Ancient Near East and Egypt History Classical Studies History of Warfare
Recent studies of the Achaemenid military have contended that the 10,000 so-called ‘Immortals’ (ἀθάνατοι) of Herodotus’ Histories are best understood as a kind of palatine infantry force, and so should not be thought of as bodyguards of the Persian kings. Rather, the ‘Apple Bearers’ (μηλοφόροι) and the ‘Kinsmen Cavalry’ (συγγενεῖς ἱππεῖς) likely undertook that role. In particular, it emerges that the infantry ‘Apple Bearers’ are the troops generally most associated with the Great King. Leadership of this unit is also associated with a dignitary known by the Greeks as the Chiliarch, or *hazarapatiš in Old Persian, with the Greeks often viewing the holder of this position as exercising enormous influence. This chapter aims to provide a cohesive overview of the ‘Apple Bearers’ and ‘Kinsmen Cavalry’, from the time of Cyrus the Great through to their involvement in the events leading up to the fall of Darius III. Our first port of call will be an overview of the source material available to us, since our understanding of Achaemenid guard units is hampered by the fact that most of our sources are Greco-Roman authors writing long after events, and using underlying sources of varying reliability. Next, the chapter will provide an analysis of the unit strength and composition of the two guard units, together with their possible equipment and dress. From there, we look at how these units were deployed in both peacetime and in war, together with the political significance of the two units. This section will discuss the involvement of the Persian bodyguards and their leaders in domestic crises, including the fall of Artaxerxes III and his son Arses (Artaxerxes IV), and the deposition of Darius III, the last Achaemenid ruler, in the wake of the Persian disaster at Gaugamela.

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