[2] According to the Chronicon Anonymum, the vast majority (120,000) of Sasanian Emperor Khosrow I Anushirvan's army of 183,000 was made up of Paygan.

[4] In the Battle of Dara, for instance, the Paygan dropped their shields and abandoned the fields when the Savaran heavy cavalry was defeated.

For their whole infantry is nothing more than a crowd of pitiable peasants who come into battle for no other purpose than to dig through walls ... and in general to serve the soldiers.

For this reason they have no weapons at all with which they might trouble their opponents, and they only hold before themselves those enormous shields and huge elephants.Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum, 19.7.3 remarks on Sasanian troops: "And day was now dawning, when mail-clad soldiers underspread the entire heaven, and the dense forces moved forward, not as before in disorder, but led by the [p. 505] slow notes of the trumpets and with no one running forward, protected too by pent-houses and holding before them wicker hurdles.

"The professional Sasanian infantry and the peasant levies are often confused as a single force in Roman sources.