10-20-2011, 03:07 PM
Quote:You may or may bot have noticed that I was being somewhat sarcastic. My personal approach is that no matter who fought whom, the side with the greater numbers prevailed most of the time.
The psychological effect of fighting Greeks is rather doubtable - especially if it comes from Greek sources.
A good example is Cunaxa - Xenophon states the barbarians fled from the sight of Greeks, while modern analysis suggests it was in fact a token force, which retreated to pull the hoplites away from battle, and that Artaxerxes may have wanted to preserve as much of the rebel army as possible for his upcoming campaign against Egypt.
Then there is the obvious point that no one likes to speak of their own defeats too much.
I still do not understand the OP of this post. You said that this is what ancient and modern historians claimed and, to be frank, I thought you believed that this was some kind of general consensus I do not know of. Why being sarcastic about anything that is not maintained?
You may choose to believe that the reputation of an army does not psychologically affect its opponent but, again in my opinion, it would be wrong. It does not matter if 90% of our sources are Greek, we would know very few things about anything in the European past were these sources not available. I think that there are countless examples of armies having to fight against opponents reputed for their fierceness or ability, especially if they have first hand experienced defeat by them, to experience deterioration, even being crushed by fear alone. Many times we read about battles where a side did not stand to fight but fled as soon as battle was about to commence. We read about battles where one side was so afraid that low morale was indeed an important factor to be reckoned with. This has nothing to do with Greeks in general and in all eras. Reputation changes with time and the timeframe you seem to have set is too wide to draw any conclusions from.
In the time of the 10,000 the reputation of the Greeks in the Persian Empire was indeed very high. You may choose not to believe Greek sources but then you will have to discount most things we know about anything regarding those times in that part of the world. Why does it sound strange to you that the the reputation of the Spartans, the Macedonians etc played a part in at least some of the battles they gave? Modern analysis of Cunaxa does not show what you propose. This is a certain interpretation, not the consensus and certainly not stemming from the evidence. The 10,000 marched through the Empire all the way to Asia Minor fighting their way. There was never shortage of Greek mercenaries in Persia. If Artaxerxes wanted Greek mercs, he would have gotten them. If he could beat them, he would have, instead of allowing them to rampage through his lands. Once beaten, he could have shown mercy and would have brought them over to his side. As for drawing them away, according to Xenophon, the battle was over before that. According to him, it was the tradition of the Persian kings to fight in the first line that cost Cyrus the battle. Anyways, as I already said, the degree of anyone's acceptance of the word of the sources is a very long discussion and can be based on multiple factors and experiences. Just be certain to apply your principals to the whole corpus. The true story and Xenophon's reliability on the 10,000 would indeed be a very interesting discussion, although I do not think that this was the OP here.
It is certainly not true that numbers alone suffice to win a battle. Again, the examples are too many to count and from any eras. Greeks did beat opponents with more numerous armies. So did the Romans, very often. So did the Persians themselves before the Empire. So did the Mongols, the Byzantines, the English, the Germans, the US... There are many factors that contribute to a victory on the battlefield, although of course manpower is one.
I really do not get the OP, the Original Point. Has anyone (historians, members of this forum, you) ever claimed that Greeks never had to fight a battle, since their opponents always or often fled away? The Persians fought bravely in many battles during the Persian and Alexandrian wars and are indeed being praised by the Greek sources. The Illyrians, the Thracians, the Romans, the Celts, the Carthaginians, the Italians, the Indians... all those and other peoples gave fierce fights and often beat the Greeks (of course this we know primarily by Greek sources, so we can indeed doubt that, maybe the Greeks did indeed beat all...). Again, if your point is that Greeks are reported to always have been outnumbered, then I have to disagree. Battles with the Greeks having the numerical advantage are indeed mentioned.
