Ancient army numbers

[MD]

I think nobody doubts that in cases of emergency the attacked states could mobilize huge forces often probably lager than what any invader could send, see the Thucycides quote above. There is a huge difference between the dream force of any invader that ensures victory in all circumstance and what they could really afford.
In war the truth is always the first victim. Herodot admits often that many of his accounts are based on hearsay, Diodoros writing several centuries later mentions quite frequently that the army numbers in his sources differ widely.
The whole purpose of this thread should be to discuss what was possible not why it was desirable to field huge armies.

In such cases the attacker must always bring at least more than 2/1, unless he has an army of vastly superior quality than the opponent (not the case of Carthagenians).
-> Carthaginians were much aware of their own motley-crew infantry deficit in front of Greek infantries ..

Are there any sources to support this assumption or is this a modern interpretation?

Due to the above, the 300,000 estimate for Carthagenian forces looks normal too given that some of them should had been more logistics than proper military (though due to small distances involved and existence of local allies, logistics pressure was smaller)
-> Carthagenians used all that massive number of cargo ships to tranfer not really supplies (which could be easily trasferred on a daily basis from N. Africa with a smaller number of ships) ..

Even with just the short distance between Africa and Sicily to bridge the food for the army still had to grow somewhere. Northern Africa was not yet the bread basket it would become after later Carthaginian and especially Roman colonization. According to Diodorus (13.81 )even 70 years Carthage, just like Athens, had to import food to feed all of its many inhabitants for this reason.

So who thinks still of the Carthagenian expendition being much less than 300,000? Based on what evidence?

Unlike the Persian with their giant and well organized empire Carthage ruled over no continuous territory, just Phoenician colonies and trading posts scattered all over the western med. More comparable to Athens and its league at the height of its power. Sure they could and did rely on mercenaries to provide the necessary numbers for their armies, but 300.000 seems to be excessively expensive. Could Carthaginian merchants so much more successful than their Greek counterparts that their state could afford such an army?

In Himera - which itself was a relatively small and unimportant city, in 2008 during works for a railway, there have been found more than 10,000 graves many of which are actually group-graves

While this cemetery seems supports parts of Diodoros narrative, as the horse graves, the number of excavated mass graves is not sufficient to support this massive armies. The necropolis was in use for roughly the last one and a half centuries before Himeras destruction. Among the 2000 graves that were closer examined there were 7 mass graves with a total of 64 bodies believed to contain casualties from the first battle in 480 BC and mass graves with 59 bodies dating to the cities destruction.

You have to understand that the peak of the Carthagenian military had not been the later Romanocarthagenian wars but the wars between Carthage and Syracuse in the 5th and 4th centuries.

Is this based just on the numbers given by the ancient historians or is there any archaeological data to support this view? Consensus seems to be the Carthage wealth peaked in 4st and 3rd centuries BC. Based on what I said at the beginning of this post we should check if their numbers are consistent with what else we know about the combatants and their resources.