What were the Ethiopians doing in Xerxes' army?
Upvote:3
As summarized in the Wikipedia article on the Second Persian Invasion of Greece, Herodotus lists 47 diverse ethnic groups which together constituted 1.7 million infantry troops, a large share of Xerces' 2.6 million forces. Whatever the accuracy of these numbers, Xerces clearly recruited soldiers from far and wide, and there may not be anything particularly special about the presence of Ethiopian ethnicities among the others.
Upvote:13
The "Aethiopia" of Herodotus was not the same thing as modern Ethiopia. Rather, the term described anyone from non-Mediterranean Africa. At the time of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Persian Empire included part of Aethiopia, so it's not surprising that an army composed of soldiers from all over the empire would include some Aethiopeans.
Upvote:18
From the Oxford English Dictionary (1928):
Ethiop...
The Ethiopians are mentioned by Homer as a people dwelling in the far east and far west; in later Gr[eek] the name was applied chiefly to the inhabitants of Africa south of Egypt, but also to people of swarthy complexion from other parts of the world.
Under the heading for Ethiopian it further mentions that this usage is also attested in English, from the 17th century, as a generic expression for black-skinned people.
So in the quotes inquired about, the usage is likely not specifically to peoples from the area now known as Abyssinia, but rather to swarthy or black-skinned peoples.
.svg){kind=link}
More post
- 📝 German private property and homes returned after founding of republic?
- 📝 When was the golden era of Christmas?
- 📝 When was encrypted voice over radio first used?
- 📝 Paradigm change in power: from military to economic in Europe
- 📝 Why was Lithuania not colonized by Soviet Union?
- 📝 Is there any historical evidence for a co-regency of Tiberius and Augustus?
- 📝 Was there a revised English version of General Order 1 re: the division of Korea?
- 📝 When did books first become affordable to the general population?
- 📝 Why did non prosecuted craftsmen go to the new world in the Roanoke era?
- 📝 Are there famous battles that took place on ice?
- 📝 In the First Barbary War, how long was the USS Philadelphia aground?
- 📝 What does this Italian soldier's 1930’s uniform tell us about his job and rank?
- 📝 Why is the flag of Prague yellow and red?
- 📝 Why did the Arab spring and Iranian Green movement failed for the most part, but the European revolution did not?
- 📝 Where was the Japanese surrender signed on Okinawa in June 1945?
- 📝 Why didn't the Allies wait for the nuclear bomb before invading Normandy?
- 📝 Have US troops ever been lawfully quartered in private homes during wartime under the Third Amendment?
- 📝 Did German citizens need a visa to enter Switzerland in 1945?
- 📝 Once formed, could a Confederate militia company find replacements to remain an effective force? How?
- 📝 Did the PLO coordinate with Arab armies during the Six Day War?
- 📝 Did Heinrich Schliemann discover Troy?
- 📝 Besides Magna Carta and general decentralization, what specifically led to democratization in England?
- 📝 How old is the practice of a woman accompanying another woman to the ladies restroom?
- 📝 Did Soviet cars have seatbelts or laws enforcing them?
- 📝 Why and when were ancient Egyptian hieroglyph phonograms used?
- 📝 Did the British really bail out the Americans at the Battle of the Bulge?
- 📝 Could British India have realistically allied with both Afghanistan and the Punjab?
- 📝 Where did the profits for the founders of the Bank of England come from?
- 📝 Did the Seljuk consider themselves Roman?
- 📝 Evidence for appealing to the divine as a means of influencing behavior
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What were the Ethiopians doing in Xerxes' army?
- 📝 What were the incentives for joining the Roman army before the Marian reforms?
- 📝 What were women doing at the Battle of Dorylaeum during the First Crusade?
- 📝 What were the ranks in the Army of Imperial Spain?
- 📝 What were conditions like for Chinese men subject to recruitment by the army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War?
- 📝 What field guns, howitzers and mortars were used by the Indian Army and the Pakistan Army during the 1971 war?
- 📝 What drugs were used in England during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe?
- 📝 What were the acceptance criteria in universities of medieval Europe?
- 📝 What language(s) were spoken within the Holy Roman Empire?
- 📝 What were the reasons for making Prohibition a constitutional amendment?
- 📝 What were the main causes of successful take over of India by Britain?
- 📝 What disruptions were brought about by Islam that the Arabians saw so many victories?
- 📝 Were there any Germans in Japan after the surrender of Germany in May, 1945 and if so, what happened to them?
- 📝 Are there any documented examples of wooden ships which were in active service for 100 years or more? If not, what is the longest?
- 📝 What were the logistics of whaling in the 1800s?
- 📝 What were the reasons that the British colonies in North America rebelled but not others?
- 📝 In WWII, what were the major differences in tank combat on the eastern and western fronts?
- 📝 Third Reich? What were the other two?
- 📝 What were the Allies' plans if they caught Hitler alive?
- 📝 What were the EMP effects, if any, of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 What made the Russian Navy suspect Japanese torpedo boats were in North Sea in 1904?
- 📝 What is the reason for: "Risk taking must focus on winning rather than preventing defeat" in US Army Operations guides?
- 📝 What were the post World War 2 effects on Germany?
- 📝 What East German laws and regulations were extended to the West after unification?
- 📝 What were the 52 kinds of victims persecuted by the Nazis?
- 📝 What were the effects of the Black Death in the Muslim world?
- 📝 What were the criteria for class ranking at West Point prior to the Civil War?
- 📝 What were the first local currency systems in history?
- 📝 What were the demographics and economics of South-East Asian islands around year 1400?