Ancient army numbers

[Paralus]

In my opinion, 2,5 mil soldiers would make the campaign even easier for Greeks to gain the victory over the Persians. Logistically they might have managed. Stratagically, they would not have, not in such a limited theater. I also have maintained that from the x mil followers, most if not all would have abandoned the campaign after mere weeks, a matter Herodot does not discuss. Yet, from all of his numbers, I find his account of Xerxes' navy most plausible.

There are precious few areas in Greece where Xerxes could muster a force of a million men. There are precious few places where he could deploy - usefully - 300,000. Such a battle line (if only infantry - cavalry would take further room) would have to be some ten or more kilometres long at a depth of 30.

The ships are another matter.Wallinga claims a standing Persian navy of 600 ships after the conquest of Phoenicia and Egypt. This he then conveniently doubles (after the defeat of the Ionians and the take over of thier naval resources) to make Herodotus' 1,200.

The Persians are landlubbers and to argue they had a "standing navy" complete with shipyards and slipways is, to my mind, more than a stretch. Whenever the Great king needed naval resources he had them built and or supplied from sea-going subjects. The classic example is Pharnabazus' fleet ("loaned" to Conon) that promted such alarm in Sparta. In all likelyhood this was being prepared and constructed for Egypt. In the end it was used to bring Persia's wayward ally Sparta to heel.

No matter the financial resources of the Persian Empire, triremes were prodigiously expensive critters to man and maintain. The King would never stump to maintaining a full time navy.

As I wrote earlier, Herodotus seems to realise that his naval numbers are over the top. With the Greeks - in full-on desperation mode - mustering some 330 ships for Artemesium (and Athens luckily supplying a majority) he felt the need to "rationalise" the Persian fleet. Note that all the ships destroyed are fighting ships (the grain ships and others are "beyond counting") and we are back to some 600 - that recurrent figure.

Lastly, if we are to believe that Xerxes took 1,207 fighting ships to Greece as well as grain ships and others "beyond counting", just what did the coastal states of the eastern Mediterranean do for an entire sailing season? They would seem reduced to trading and sailing in dinghies.