A theory about this group posits that a translator mistook their name for a word meaning “companion” or “follower.” A possible member of this group was forced to guard a beautiful gold-decorated plane-tree. In an account set in Thessaly, this group is the first chosen to form an army, but without their general Hydarnes the Younger. Gold and silver pomegranate-shaped spear butts were wielded by this group, who are sometimes conflated with the imperial guard’s (*) “Apple Bearers.” This was the first group chosen by Mardonius to remain in Greece. The Median failure to break Leonidas’s lines forced Xerxes to dispatch this 10,000-strong unit in his second assault at Thermopylae. For 10 points, “when one died, another immediately replaced him” aptly describes what elite Persian infantry unit? ■END■
ANSWER: Persian Immortals [or Athánatoi; prompt on the Apple Bearers or Spear Bearers until “Apple Bearers” is read; prompt on the Persian or Achaemenid army or infantry by asking “what specific unit?”; prompt on the Persian imperial guard until read; reject the “Ten Thousand”] (Some have asserted that the Apple Bearers were a separate elite unit that acted as the king’s bodyguards.)
<KT, Ancient History>
= Average correct buzz position