\'soft\' eastern soldiers

[Sean Manning]

This logic does not apply: the Persian empire fell in 651 AD, the Eastern Roman empire in 1453. Obviously, we are depending on the survival of our ancient sources and these are richest from ca. 500 BC to 200 AD or so and in this time period the West mainly made history, while the East chiefly endured it. It stands to reason that the stronger political and military units also claimed for themselves to be the tougher ones.

In your terms, what does it mean to "make history"? It seems to me that every million people has exactly 100 million person-years of history per century. Occasionally, a tiny part of this is recorded, and occasionally, a tiny part of that is of interest to people later.