In Old Persian, the written language of Achaemenid inscriptions, the word used to refer to the 'navy' or 'fleet' was "nāva", a noun in plural feminine nominative form.

[citation needed] No relevant primary documents have been found about it, nor have any ruins of Persian naval installations or remains of ships been excavated.

While independent Persian tradition is lost, all we know about the Achaemenid navy is recorded by ancient Greek historians like Herodotus.

After him, Darius I deployed the navy to strengthen dominance over the coast of Asia Minor, as well as its adjacent islands.

[1] The Cilician base was heavily guarded by a large number of troops, whose payments were financed by the local tributes in that satrapy.

[3] However, Cilicia was the main base and was always ready for deployment because unlike Shatt al-Arab, it was intended for power projection.

[6] Achaemenid settlements like Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and the Indian subcontinent were regular destinations for naval ships.

[3] They operated patrols in river or littoral environments like Shatt al-Arab and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, Nile in Egypt and Sind in the Indian subcontinent.

[1] In the wake of creating the navy, Persians hired Phoenician rowers and sailors, but later recruited from other subject peoples.

[7] The servicemen were probably employed with full payment, because lengthy deployments imposed a drastic change to their communities especially if it included one or two harvests.

[12] Equipped with one mast with square sail, the triremes had rudders made up of two bladed oars, one on each side of stern, united by a crossbar.

[3] Equipment included grappling hooks (used to catch and halt enemy ships) and two mangonels, the latter throwing stones or flammable projectiles.

[3] The navy operated a large number of vessels used to carry food and other supplies, which commonly had a displacement of 100 to 150 tons, at the time they invaded Egypt in 373 BC.

[3] During its early years under Cambyses, the Achaemenid navy is assumed to possess about 300 triremes, which was equal to the sum of the fleet of Egypt and its ally Polycrates of Samos.

[1] Herodotus' account of naval forces under Xerxes I, put the number of warships in service at 1,207, in addition to 3,000 transport ships.

[1] Herodotus also states that Persians arrived for the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) with 600 triremes and some horse transport vessels.

[11] Considering that each ship had an average of 50 oarsmen (the absolute minimum for a trireme) and 10 to 20 seamen and marines were also aboard, the navy compromised 36,000 to 42,000 men, at least.

[16] While there is not much to confirm this, some scholars maintain that Alexander Mosaic contained a depiction of the standard (on the part which is now damaged), head of a bird in yellow on a red cloth.