ABSTRACT
This chapter delves deeply into a comparison of Persian warfare to argue how and why the multi-faceted Persian army did not use combined arms in battle (The Persian Empire and Its (Mis)use of a Combined Arms Army). It then examines why the Persian diverse army lost so decisively to the tactically simple Greek hoplite phalanxes at the crucial battles of Marathon and Plataea (The Persian Wars: The Mirage of the Hoplite’s Superiority; Persian Armies Exposed without Using Combined Arms Properly – Marathon; The Beginnings of Successful Combined Arms in Greek Armies – Plataea). Though not providing a new interpretation of Marathon or Plataea, this section examines the battles by analysing the failure of Persia to use combined arms fully and how that affected the outcome of the wars as a whole. Attempting to view things from the Persian perspective, this will be a key discussion topic to lay the foundations for the later discussion of combined arms use in the era of the Greek hoplite and the Peloponnesian War.
