10-26-2006, 02:08 PM
Raising an army is a very expensive thing. Generally, you want your army to be big enough to meet it's objectives, and no bigger. I think this has to be the main factor that limits the size of army. I have never heard of anyone *needing* a bigger army to execute their offensive plans, but having access to plenty of men and material and preperation time, being prevented by logistical concerns. Invaders always bring many more troops along than they expect will be defending, no matter how large or small the army. A cost benefit analysis is made, and the size of the army is decided from this alone.
Xerxes objective seems to be a rather misguided one. There are very few cases in history where the military objective was to make a big show. There are many instances in Herodotus that indicate that Xerxes expected no resistance. Certainly, a bloodless victory is a very noble thing for a conquerer, but history (a field of study only recently invented in his time
) shows us that while you may be able to frighten a person, you can never frighten 'a people'.
Xerxes objective seems to be a rather misguided one. There are very few cases in history where the military objective was to make a big show. There are many instances in Herodotus that indicate that Xerxes expected no resistance. Certainly, a bloodless victory is a very noble thing for a conquerer, but history (a field of study only recently invented in his time
) shows us that while you may be able to frighten a person, you can never frighten 'a people'.
Rich Marinaccio
