Herodotus (VII. ch. lx.-lxxxiii.), when reviewing the army of Xerxes (Khshhershe = Ahasuerus[689]) in B.C. 480, numbers forty-five nations, of which only the six (including Colchians and Caspians) wore Swords. The long straight dagger was carried by the Pactyans, by the Paphlagonians, by the Thracians, and by the Sagartians, who spoke Persian, and who were in dress half Persians and half Pactyans (Afghans?).[690] The Sagartian Nomades (chap. lxxxv.) were armed with a short blade and with lassos of plaited thongs ending in a running noose: this denotes that they were cattle-breeders.[691] Chapter liv. again mentions ‘the Persian Sword of the kind which they call ἀκινάκης (Akinakes):’ like the Roman _pugio_ and the modern _couteau-de-chasse_, it was straight, not curved, as expressly stated by Josephus.[692] The Persian troops wore only these ‘daggers suspended from their girdles along their right thighs.’ Hence Cambyses died of a wound on his right side, and Valerius Flaccus describes a Parthian as— Insignis manicis, insignis acinace dextro. (_Arg._ vi. 701.) Julius Pollux explains it as a περσικὸν ξιφίδιον, τῷ μηρῷ προσηρτημένον (a Persian swordlet fastened to the thigh), and Josephus compares it with the Sica or Sicca.[693] The favourite weapon was the bow, although Darius speaks of the Sword as the instrument of punishment. [Illustration: FIG. 225.—PERSIAN ACINACES. (Here worn on right side.)] [Illustration: FIG. 226.—PERSIAN ACINACES.] [Illustration: FIG. 227.—SWORD FROM MITHRAS GROUP.] [Illustration: FIG. 228.—SWORD IN RELIEF, PERSEPOLIS SCULPTURES.] The Indians, afterwards so celebrated for their Swords, were in B.C. 480 barbarians dressed in cottons and armed with only cane bows and arrows. Of the twelve peoples who supplied the one thousand two hundred and seven triremes, the Egyptians had long cutlasses, the Cilicians ‘Swords closely resembling the cutlass of the Egyptians,’ the Lycians[694] daggers and curved falchions, and the Carians daggers and ‘enses falcati,’ which apparently were not used by the Greeks (chap. xciii.). [Illustration: FIG. 229.—PERSIAN ACINACES. From a bas-relief at Persepolis.] [Illustration: FIG. 230.—DAGGER-FORMS FROM PERSEPOLIS.]