02-14-2012, 03:45 AM
I won't hazard a guess as to what the real size of the Persian army was, but some people seem to give the impression that it would be impossible for 300,000 people to be in the same place at all. Certainly there were cities with that many people, people who aren't being ordered to live together, are not receiving huge quantities of free food and pay from their king, and these cities are not temporary.
It is also entirely possible that back then keeping everyone perfectly supplied and well-fed was not a "number one" priority. If an army's logistics weren't good enough keep everyone completely healthy and its numbers began suffering attrition due to starvation, then that might just be another statistic to toss upon the already appalling losses due to things like illness, injury, and desertion.
Ultimately the campaign in Greece was a failure, so arguing logistics might as well be like a future historian saying, "There is no way Napoleon's Grand Armee had 450,000 men because it would have been impossible for him to keep them all fed during the Russian winter."
But getting back to the main topic. I think an interesting question would be why were ancient armies, even from disorganized confederations like Gual or city-states like early Republican Rome, in most accounts multitudes larger than almost anything seen in dark age or medieval europe?
It is also entirely possible that back then keeping everyone perfectly supplied and well-fed was not a "number one" priority. If an army's logistics weren't good enough keep everyone completely healthy and its numbers began suffering attrition due to starvation, then that might just be another statistic to toss upon the already appalling losses due to things like illness, injury, and desertion.
Ultimately the campaign in Greece was a failure, so arguing logistics might as well be like a future historian saying, "There is no way Napoleon's Grand Armee had 450,000 men because it would have been impossible for him to keep them all fed during the Russian winter."
But getting back to the main topic. I think an interesting question would be why were ancient armies, even from disorganized confederations like Gual or city-states like early Republican Rome, in most accounts multitudes larger than almost anything seen in dark age or medieval europe?
Henry O.
