Legacy
The title of "Immortals" was first revived under the Sassanid army. The most famous of the Savaran units were the Zhayedan (Immortals) and numbered 10,000 men, like the Achaemenid predecessors, with the difference that they were cavalry. Their task was mainly to secure any breakthroughs and to enter battles at crucial stages.
The title of "Immortals" was again revived twice under the Byzantine Empire, first as an elite heavy cavalry unit under John I Tzimiskes (r. 969–976) and then by Nikephoritzes, the chief minister of Emperor Michael VII (r. 1071–1081), as the core of a new central field army, following the disastrous defeat of Manzikert by the Seljuk Turks in 1071.
Many centuries later, during the Napoleonic Wars/Wars of the Coalitions, French soldiers referred to Napoleon's Imperial Guard as "the Immortals."
The modern Iranian Army under the last Shah included an all volunteer Javidan Guard, also known as the "Immortals" after the ancient Persian royal guard. The "Immortals" were based in the Lavizan Barracks in Tehran. By 1978 this elite force comprised a brigade of 4,000–5,000 men, including a battalion of Chieftain tanks. Following the overthrow of the Imperial regime in 1979 the "Immortals" were disbanded.
Read more about this topic: Immortals (Persian Empire)
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)