Xerxes Five Million Men

[hoplite14gr]

I agree that France in 1813 was more advanced, but I don't think that raw numbers are an indication of advancement. Napoleon was a very succesful general. Xerxes was not. Napoleon would have told Xerxes to give him 100,000 men to conquer Greece, and he would have done it.

Not if he was fighting Alexander the Great.

So, let´s resume our proposals, 1) what are the numbers you propose, and 2) on what are based those numbers

I think the method of counting given by Herodotus would lead to considerable inflation of the numbers. I scale it back from 1.7 million to 1 million fighting men. The number must be large enough so that, though the Persians had allied with everyone north of Thessaly, they starved to death without more than a numerically insignificant battle. Mind you this isn't Russia in the wintertime, it's Greece! Quite known for a pleasant climate.

As for the followers and allies gained on the march, I think that the number should be very much lower that what was estimated by Herodotus. I would say that an additional 100,000 would be the maximum. Also, I think anyone who had a chance of survival in Greece, who had an ounce of courage, would have deserted rather than fight for a king who they probably hadn't even heard of before they were pressed into service, whos motivation consisted mainly of the whip. So there may have been less men with him at Thermopylae than in Asia.

I say one million total human beings in the land army.

Greece is pleasant but grain had to beimported from the Archaic to the Byzantine times Greece first time produced exactly the amount of grain that needed without imports in 1958.
That means that that Herodotus description of a starving Army is very likely.
Xerxes was used on the large plains of Asia and Egypt that is why raised a big Army.
I agree with Paul that we dont exactly know the real abilities of the civilazations of the time. North Africa was not so much of a Desert as we know it know. Modern Tynician deessert was once the fertile trees of Carthage according to archeologists. Cyrinaica and Tripolis in Lybya had more than 60000 people each. There were bronze age cities in the middle east with popluation arround 1000000. I cannot buy the 5 million number as I wrote before but 500000 even 600000 troops was possible to muster.
How many of them would be real soldiers thats another matter. How they would be fed another thing! Possibly most of them starved to death from miscalculation.