How many at Gaugamela

[Q Rutilius]

Is there such a thing as a list of the numbers of each type of troop at Gaugamela? For example: how many Bactrian cavalry? How many Scythians? etc. I have books by Green and Dodge, but I cannot find a list of troops and the numbers for each troop type. Perhaps such a thing does not exist. Has anyone even tried to make a reasonable estimate?

Also, I am seeking recommendations for a good English translation of Arrian.

[Paullus Scipio]

If you check the wiki entry for Arrian, you will find a number of on-line translations.

I think the most readable version is in book form - the translation by Aubrey De Selincourt (revised) published as a Penguin Classic.

As to numbers at Gaugamela, our sources sadly give somewhat fantastic global figures for the persians in particular, but it is possible to make rough guesses/ estimates for the forces involved. I emphasise that these are only estimates, and it is possible to vary these considerably:

Alexander:

CAVALRY:
Companions - 2-2,500
Thessalians - 2,000
Greek Allies -750 or so
Prodromoi Scouts - 600-1,000
Paeonians - 300-600
Scythian Allies ( horse archers) -300 or so
Greek Mercenaries -750 or so
Thracians - 1,000-1,500

INFANTRY:
Hypaspists - 3,000
Macedonian Phalanx - c.12,000 in 6 Taxeis
Greek Allies - 7,000 or so
Greek Mercenaries -8-10,000
Light Infantry;
Thracian peltasts -5-6,000
Agrianians -1,000 or so
Illyrians - 1,000 or so
Cretan archers - 1,000 or so

The Persians are much more difficult to estimate - Arrian lists their contingents, but seldom gives exact numbers, unsurprisingly, beyond 'vast hosts'. The following may be seen as fairly arbitrary.....

Darius
CAVARY:
Somewhere around 30-35,000 at a guess, perhaps as few as 20,000. The contingents can be taken as 500-1,000 unless otherwise stated:
Royal Guard - 1,000
Persis
Indians
Carians
Susiana
Cadusii
Sacessinia
Media
Albania
Hyrcania
Tapuritae
Dahae ( nomads)
Arachosia - 2,000
Massagetae (heavy) - 2,000
Bactrian (heavy) -2,000
Bactrian (light) - 1,000
Cappadocian
Armenian - 2,000
Syrian
Parthian - 2,000
Mesopotamian
Scythian - 4,000

Scythed chariots - 200
Elephants - 15 ( took no part in the battle apparently)

INFANTRY:
Royal Guard - 2,000
Greek Mercenaries - 2-4,000
Indians, Carians, Medes, Babylonians and various other poor quality levies - perhaps 20,000 or as many as 50,000 ( these played little or no part in the battle)

Whatever the exact numbers Alexander was vastly outnumbered and so advanced to battle in a large hollow square, in a 'rhombus' formation.

Hope this information, simply best estimates with very little 'hard' numbers is of some use.....

[Q Rutilius]

Thanks Paulus. I figured that all we had was vague and hugely inflated numbers. But, I thought it was worth asking in case there was some source that I was not aware of. I thought that the penguin edition would be a good one, now I have to get one.

[Sean Manning]

I'm skeptical of any Persian army with 30,000 cavalry, even one drawn from the Upper Satrapies. I would guess that Alexander was slightly outnumbered (our Greek sources make much of Persian numbers, but they do the same for every other Persian army they describe in detail) and that Darius' army was something like 20% cavalry and 80% infantry. Still, that's just my prefered guess, just like Paullus'.

Its a shame to have so little information on numbers, because the Alexander historians had access to at least one reliable document: a Persian plan for deployment. Did it have names but not strengths, or did someone censor the numbers realizing that they would lessen the glory of Alexander's achievements? (Or simply not believing them: "Darius only had 9,643 cavalry ready to fight on the day before the battle? You must be translating this wrong, slave.")

[Paullus Scipio]

I'm skeptical of any Persian army with 30,000 cavalry, even one drawn from the Upper Satrapies. I would guess that Alexander was slightly outnumbered (our Greek sources make much of Persian numbers, but they do the same for every other Persian army they describe in detail) and that Darius' army was something like 20% cavalry and 80% infantry. Still, that's just my prefered guess, just like Paullus'.

Its a shame to have so little information on numbers, because the Alexander historians had access to at least one reliable document: a Persian plan for deployment. Did it have names but not strengths, or did someone censor the numbers realizing that they would lessen the glory of Alexander's achievements? (Or simply not believing them: "Darius only had 9,643 cavalry ready to fight on the day before the battle? You must be translating this wrong, slave.")

......Yes, it is a pity that despite the detail we are given in our sources about deployment, ( Arrian quotes Aristobulus as saying the written Order of Dispositions was captured); there are few numbers given for Persian units - but Darius will have known the strength of each contingent, so it probably didn't need to be mentioned in an 'Order of Deployment'. We do know that previously, Persian troops, including cavalry, were organised on a decimal system into 'myriads' 1,000 strong. We also know that after Gaugamela, Alexander recruited some of these very units, such as the Scythians and that they too were 1,000 strong. Some units, such as the Bactrians, were much stronger (6,000 'Heavy' cavalry and 2,000 'Light' horse archers.) We are told by Asclepiodotus that Persian cavalry sub-units ( squadrons/troops) formed up 'square', which may mean sub-units of 100 ( 10 ranks x 10 files), but since the manuals tell us more than 8 deep was useless, they may have been 50 strong ( 7 ranks x 7 files). Strabo tells us that the contemporary 'Kardakes' infantry were organised into companies 50 strong. At Gaugamela, the Royal Guard, 1,000 strong formed up as a single out-sized unit according to Diodoros, and Plutarch adds that these were in a particularly deep formation.

We also know that one of the un-numbered contingents, the town of Persis, could raise 3-5,000 cavalry on occasion.
Bearing this in mind, we have 22 or so named contingents, and if call all the 'un-numbered' ones 1,000, and add in those we have numbers for, we get a total of aprox. 35,000 cavalry; close to the 40,000 given by Arrian III.8.6 - mind you, he gives an impossible 1,000,000 Infantry! hock: ....other foot totals are also unbelievably huge: Didoros gives 800,000 (17.53.3), Justin 400,000 (11.12.5) and Curtius 200,000 (4.12.13). Curtius gives a possible 45,000 horse, but Didoros' (200,000) and Justin's (100,000) figures for cavalry are as incredible as their foot numbers.

Even if we allow a paltry few hundred per un-numbered contingent ( say, an average of 500 - Alexander's smallest Cavalry unit was the Paeonians at 300 and surely every Persian contingent must have been bigger than tiny Paeonia... ) we get a total of around 24,000 in all.

Anther clue that on this occasion, Alexander was seriously outnumbered, especially in cavalry, is his battle formation - a hollow square, echeloned to the right to form a sort of rhombus, which wouldn't have been needed if Alexander weren't seriously outnumbered/outflanked. If one works out likely frontages, the Persians need 20-30,000 cavalry in order to comfortably outflank Alexander's 2.5 -3 km frontage, in order to cause Alexander to 'form square'. ( like Sean, I agree that the Persian numbers are grossly exaggerated - the Greek 'topos' of the numberless Persian horde. In fact it is possible/likely that Alexander outnumbered them at Granikos, and that numbers were roughly equal at Issus)

As for Infantry, not many units are specified, and it is possible that the '50,000 levied peasants' drawn up to the rear of the battle line were simply the camp-servants, grooms etc.

Leaving these aside, Darius appears to have had as few as 15-20,000 proper Infantry, and certainly no more than 30,000 or so, largely forming his centre......

[Paralus]

As far as Persian numbers are concerned, the Greco-Macedonian tradition should be viewed with abject skepticism. For Greeks (and Macedonians) it was never enough to defeat a “royal” army in the field; that army had to be a polyglot United Nations numbering in the millions to a minimum 600,000. This “meme” or motif goes back to Herodotus and is very set in ancient Greek “historiography”.

Herodotus would have us believe that some 1,700,000 invaded Greece. One imagines what the – by comparison – paltry force of Marathon was to do if the entire manhood of Greece had come to Athens’ aid. Then again it was only there to “spank the bums” of Eretria and Athens and would then, I suppose, have returned home. That 300,000 took the field at Plataea – at the end of seriously stretched supply lines and no navy – beggars belief. For the Greeks – used to confrontation of 6-12,000 apiece – an army of 30-50,000 will have been the largest such assembly ever seen and this is likely what Mardonius had. This, too, was likely the “fighting army” of the entire invasion and will have been largely Iranian in nature.

At Cunaxa Xenophon, without any hint of embarrassment, informs us that King’s infantry (only) should have numbered 1,200,000. That only 900,000 took the field – the dilatory Abrocomas being five days late with his 300,000 – must have come as a rather large relief to Cyrus who, for some reason, seems not to have realised the incontinent numbers his brother would muster. Oh, but then he had some 13,000 Greeks so his numbers (of “natives”) were largely immaterial.

That these effete people conquered such an empire is only conceivable within the Greco-Macedonian motif: thoroughly incontinent numbers of Iranians conquered peoples worse than themselves and one Greek was the better of 100 barbarians. The literary tradition screams it and Plataea proves it.

So we come to the great conqueror Alexander. Even given the accomplishment of toppling the "World empire" itself is not enough, the Great must defeat large populations mustered under the degenerate King’s orders. At Issos we have (at largest) 600,000. Within this are 30,000 Greeks. This is food for the credulous. One can only imagine how long it took such a column to debouch from the Amanus Gates.

At Gaugamela we are launched back into the world of the truly fantastical. Here we have, from Arrian, a million infantry and 40,000 odd cavalry. Think about that. We are three centuries BC, without modern communications and logistics and we are asked to believe that Darius mustered and organized an army a little less than a quarter the population of Sydney Australia. The same author then drops a stunner:

The Persian losses were reckoned at about 300,000 dead, a figure greatly exceeded by the number of prisoners.

So we have the Macedonians – all 47,000 odd of them – corralling and feeding 400,000 or more prisoners. Utter rubbish.

The various contingents are beyond recovery in terms of accurate numbers. This was an army of the central and upper satrapies and if Darius – putting his faith in cavalry – mustered 35-40,000 I, for one, would be truly surprised. Peithon, immediately after Alexander’s death, raised 8,000 from these regions; Eumenes a little more than 4,500 in 317. Those numbers are instructive and it is unlikely, in my opinion, that the King will have had much more than 25,000 if that many. This was far in excess of Alexander.

Arrian has Alexander somewhat to the right of Darius (who is in the centre of his line). Outside Alexander is his right flank guard. From this it likely that the Persian line somewhat less than doubled the Macedonian. We do not know the Persian depth. I’d guess that the total Persian force likely amounted to less than 100,000 and nearer 70-80,000.

The lie to these numbers is given by the Diadoch armies in the aftermath of Alexander’s death. Antigonus, with the resources of Asia behind him, is attested as leading 80,000 to Egypt in 306. Antiochus III, defending his empire and with the same “polyglot” minions, musters a paltry 70,000. These dynasts did not lack for funds.

Perhaps the last words should be left to Thucydides (in the words he places into Hermocrates’ mouth in Syracuse (6.33.5-6):

Few great expeditions, either Hellenic or barbarian, having set out a great distance from their own land have been successful. For they do not come in greater numbers than the local inhabitants and their neighbours (since out fear there is a general banding together), and if they come to disaster in a foreign land through shortage of supplies, they leave those they plotted against a glorious reputation, even if for the most part they owe their failure to themselves. Indeed in just such a way these very Athenians, when unexpectedly many disasters befell the Mede, were magnified on the ground that he was going against Athens.

Seemingly Thucydides believes the Greeks were not necessarily outnumbered and that it was more a matter of “shortage of supplies” that contributed greatly to the defeat. Indeed, a reading of Mardonuis’ reasons for fighting the battle he didn’t need to fight was due to exactly that.

[Sean Manning]

Thanks for the details of your argument, Paullus! Lots to think about there.

This is a hard question, and it deserves more research than I have time to give it right now. I can't reply to your analysis of the ancient sources on the battle.

It is true that the infantry don't play much part in our battle descriptions, but the same is true of the Granicus (where our sources also tell us that there were a large force of eastern infantry as well as the cavalry and Greek mercenaries). That may reflect the fact that they were few in numbers, or that the infantry fight wasn't very interesting to our sources compared to the cavalry fights on the flanks, or that (nod to Jona) the dust hid everything and the Babylonian infantry listened to their astrologers and fled.

If your analysis of Persian strength is correct (25,000 to 35,000 horse and a similar number of foot) then Darius' army was very different from the other large Persian armies we know which consisted of mostly infantry with a smaller force of cavalry. Of course, Darius' second army was recruited heavily from the Upper Satrapies where there were undoubtedly a higher proportion of cavalry. But then again, he had the manpower of Persia, Assyria, and Babylonia to draw on, and those regions probably produced mostly infantry. Still, on second thought, I can envision Darius making a bold decision to rely on cavalry to defeat the Yauna army.

So a much more cavalry-based army at Gaugamela is possible. From administrative records we know that the Ottoman Turks could collect 70,000 horsemen and 25,000 janissaries for a campaign led by a sultan, but they could only supply such an army on campaign for a few months. Given that, I don't think that 25,000 or 35,000 cavalry can be ruled out on logistical grounds either, since the King's army was operating in the bread-basket of Southwest Asia. Still, that would be a truely remarkable force- I don't know of any other ancient cavalry forces that large.