05-19-2005, 07:26 PM
Quote:Hans Delbrück made an interesting estimate. Had Herodotus been right the tail of Xerxes' army would have been leaving Persepolis the day the van arrived at Thermophylae. Yes, this is based on late 19th century practises and ancient armies may have 'bunched' considerably more, but even if you cut it in half it still shows the idea of millions of Persians is ridiculous.
In fact I'm dubious enough about hundreds of thousands.
I have to disagree with him on this one, as we know that Athens today can pack 3.7 million people into it's limits, who actually live there, and can hold many more visiters. 1 million fighting men would have to stand probably 50 meters apart to go from thermopylae to persopolis.
Edit: that's a wild guess on my part BTW :lol:
Rich Marinaccio
