Sab Shari

Semitic conscript spear infantry. Very good in the early game but eventually outclassed by newer units like Hoplitai or even Phalangitai.

These are generic Semitic heavy infantry, drawn from Semitic peoples of all nations and using vintage armament systems as those used by the late Assyrian and Chaldaean empires of past centuries. They are in sort not very different from Punic infantry of Kings & Conquerors other than that they have poorer armour stats owing to their obsolete training and equipment.

History
Because the Persian Empire (often called the Achaemenid Empire) embraced many nations and cultures, each with its own distinctive social structure, it is impossible to speak of “society” in the singular. However, there were some trends within the empire which were felt throughout the empire.

The first was the spread of a Persian or Iranian landowning class. When the Persians conquered a kingdom, some of the vanquished kings’ and nobles’ estates were confiscated and taken over by the Persian king. He kept much for himself and the royal family, but he also distributed much of it to his high officials and members of the Persian nobility. The extensive estates of the Persian ruling class thus came to be scattered throughout the empire, from Egypt and Asia Minor to Bactria.

Mesopotamia in particular seems to have been the location for vast estates. With its very productive agriculture and comparative proximity to the Iranian homeland, this region must have been regarded as highly attractive for Persian landowners.

Another social development was the expansion, already seen under the late Babylonian kings, of the merchant classes. This was the result of the expansion of trade and banking (see below). Some merchants and bankers became very wealthy indeed, and became large landowners. Linked to this development was the spread of urban settlement outside those regions such as Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor which had experienced this for millennia. Iran itself, the imperial homeland but hitherto on the margins of the civilized world, became much more urbanized than before, as did the lands to its east.

The vast majority of the population of the empire lived by farming, as in all pre-modern societies. It is hard to compare the condition of the peasantry with that in other periods of ancient history. For the most part they were spared the upheavals that war brings, and taxation was probably no heavier than in other periods. In the less settled times of the later Persian empire, however, the irrigation systems of Mesopotamia seem to have experienced some neglect, and this will have led to the condition of the peasantry there deteriorating.