05-20-2005, 10:08 AM
Most authorities think Xerxes' army needs scaling-down. I think the question is, how far? I don't think that the chroniclers of the Classical Age were anywhere near as lax in their estimation of numbers as Medieval ones. This is just a feeling I get from the different styles, coupled with what seems a universal distrust, among the experts, of Medieval calculation.
Perhaps I just want to believe in the story of the valiant stand against truly hopeless odds, but I think there must have been a huge disproportion between the two forces at Thermopylae. Xerxes himself appears to have thought the outcome so clearly inevitable, that he sat and waited for several days for the Greeks' nerve to break.
Estimates for Greek numbers from Connolly and Hanson seem to be 6,100 at Thermopylae and 1,000 Phocians on "detached duty". "Greece and Rome at War" lists the traditional 300 Spartans, plus 900 Helots; 2,800 "other Peloponesians"; 1,000 Phocians; the "whole army" of Locris; 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans.
What could we say is the size of an army that would guarantee the annihilation of 6,000 men in a highly defensible position? Are there any standard calculations for this? I've heard that 20th Century strategists considered 3-1 odds necessary for a decisive victory between similarly-equipped land armies in open terrain. I would have thought that Thermopylae was expected to enable the defenders to face much heavier odds than this. I wonder whether the Greeks and Persians themselves actually considered the numbers ( and the Greeks were just the kind of lovers of theory to do just that) - "Yes, Sir, I can hold an army ten times the size of ours in this position." "Ah, jolly good, old chap.... Um... Just one thing...Our observers estimate the enemy has an army one hundred times the size of ours... " "Oh."
Or, on the Persian side, "Great King, we outnumber the enemy fifty-to-one; we shall brush their contemptible little army* aside with one sweep of our armoured sleeve!"* "Yes, well, don't bother me with the arithmetic, old chap, just get on with it, there's a good fellow..."
I also wonder what experience might have taught them about the effectiveness of defensive positions like Thermopylae and the relative merits of each side's equipment. We know the two sides had experience of fighting each other and each must have been aware of the other's "track record" against other peoples. Did the Greeks believe in the Hoplite panoply and the phalanx in the way that the British at Rorke's Drift believed in their rifles? Did the Persians believe in the power of numbers in the way that Boudicca did against Suetonius?
There is another consideration: Xerxes (and some Greeks) considered his army to represent awesome force* as compared to ALL THE FORCES Greece could field. Again according to Connolly, the Greeks sent over 100,000 men to Plataea. If the two sides had any realistic idea of their own and each other's numbers, the Persians must, I think, have had between 300,000 and 1,000,000 SOLDIERS (at odds from 3-1 to 10-1) to have been so arrogantly confident of their success.
How would this army be supplied? I don't accept that the Persians would have relied on foraging, as later armies did. The empire had been around a long time and was accustomed to moving large armies over great distances. Persia controlled the breadbasket of the Mediterranean world, Egypt, and the seas which separated it from Greece. I don't see why the commander of an army which built a pontoon bridge to cross from Asia Minor into Europe, would not have had the wit to re-supply his forces from a base far behind his front line.
Why, then, did Persians starve on the way home? I don't know. I wonder how far we can trust reports that they did so, and, if so, in what numbers. What evidence is there , that very few ever reached home? I would accept that the retreat could easily have become a nightmare, like Napoleon's from Moscow, with the army having been broken at Plataea, but this is not evidence that the Persians were not well-supplied and supported on the way in, when the Great King was actively involved and interested in what happened to them, and has no bearing on his ability to support a truly huge army.
I have no idea what evidence there is for or against the notion that Xerxes supplied his army from beyond Greece. No doubt some of you will inform me on this. Connolly posits an army of 250, 000, of whom 75% were effectives. This number is extrapolated from figures given by General Sir Frederick Maurice. He may be right, but he was of the generation which asserted that Singapore could not be taken by land because no army of sufficient size would be able to get through the jungle.
*Play "Spot the Source" for fun and... well, amusement.
Perhaps I just want to believe in the story of the valiant stand against truly hopeless odds, but I think there must have been a huge disproportion between the two forces at Thermopylae. Xerxes himself appears to have thought the outcome so clearly inevitable, that he sat and waited for several days for the Greeks' nerve to break.
Estimates for Greek numbers from Connolly and Hanson seem to be 6,100 at Thermopylae and 1,000 Phocians on "detached duty". "Greece and Rome at War" lists the traditional 300 Spartans, plus 900 Helots; 2,800 "other Peloponesians"; 1,000 Phocians; the "whole army" of Locris; 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans.
What could we say is the size of an army that would guarantee the annihilation of 6,000 men in a highly defensible position? Are there any standard calculations for this? I've heard that 20th Century strategists considered 3-1 odds necessary for a decisive victory between similarly-equipped land armies in open terrain. I would have thought that Thermopylae was expected to enable the defenders to face much heavier odds than this. I wonder whether the Greeks and Persians themselves actually considered the numbers ( and the Greeks were just the kind of lovers of theory to do just that) - "Yes, Sir, I can hold an army ten times the size of ours in this position." "Ah, jolly good, old chap.... Um... Just one thing...Our observers estimate the enemy has an army one hundred times the size of ours... " "Oh."
Or, on the Persian side, "Great King, we outnumber the enemy fifty-to-one; we shall brush their contemptible little army* aside with one sweep of our armoured sleeve!"* "Yes, well, don't bother me with the arithmetic, old chap, just get on with it, there's a good fellow..."
I also wonder what experience might have taught them about the effectiveness of defensive positions like Thermopylae and the relative merits of each side's equipment. We know the two sides had experience of fighting each other and each must have been aware of the other's "track record" against other peoples. Did the Greeks believe in the Hoplite panoply and the phalanx in the way that the British at Rorke's Drift believed in their rifles? Did the Persians believe in the power of numbers in the way that Boudicca did against Suetonius?
There is another consideration: Xerxes (and some Greeks) considered his army to represent awesome force* as compared to ALL THE FORCES Greece could field. Again according to Connolly, the Greeks sent over 100,000 men to Plataea. If the two sides had any realistic idea of their own and each other's numbers, the Persians must, I think, have had between 300,000 and 1,000,000 SOLDIERS (at odds from 3-1 to 10-1) to have been so arrogantly confident of their success.
How would this army be supplied? I don't accept that the Persians would have relied on foraging, as later armies did. The empire had been around a long time and was accustomed to moving large armies over great distances. Persia controlled the breadbasket of the Mediterranean world, Egypt, and the seas which separated it from Greece. I don't see why the commander of an army which built a pontoon bridge to cross from Asia Minor into Europe, would not have had the wit to re-supply his forces from a base far behind his front line.
Why, then, did Persians starve on the way home? I don't know. I wonder how far we can trust reports that they did so, and, if so, in what numbers. What evidence is there , that very few ever reached home? I would accept that the retreat could easily have become a nightmare, like Napoleon's from Moscow, with the army having been broken at Plataea, but this is not evidence that the Persians were not well-supplied and supported on the way in, when the Great King was actively involved and interested in what happened to them, and has no bearing on his ability to support a truly huge army.
I have no idea what evidence there is for or against the notion that Xerxes supplied his army from beyond Greece. No doubt some of you will inform me on this. Connolly posits an army of 250, 000, of whom 75% were effectives. This number is extrapolated from figures given by General Sir Frederick Maurice. He may be right, but he was of the generation which asserted that Singapore could not be taken by land because no army of sufficient size would be able to get through the jungle.
*Play "Spot the Source" for fun and... well, amusement.
