Ancient army numbers

[Nikanor]

The touch of zealotry surfaces MD. You should depart along with myself...

When I lose an argument I do not accuse the other of being a zealot and run away. It is a discussion, not war that we do here. I am all open to the different viewpoint - should you have anything stronger than what I present I would happily converge to your position. I simply underline that there is no serious base till now to change ancient references to numbers by a scale approaching the 1/10. That is all. So where is the zealotry? In the time I consacrate perhaps to clear out false perceptions of antiquity? I love the issue, that is all.

In anyway, please accept another dedicated interesting information:

Some 71 years decades later, Carthagenians campaigned again in western Sicily and attacked at Himera. This time the mobilisation is mentioned to had been "considerably smaller" at 120,000 troops including the local allies. Syracusians had not sent their full force there but a part of their army and Carthagenians avoided head-on collision and took victory by employing misinformation moves that convinced the major part of the Syracusian force to rush back to protect the roads to Syracuse. Thus Carthagenians were able to surpass the resistance of the remaining Greek force and call it a victory - punishing exemplary the city of Himera and taking revenge for the earlier loss.

With such a large army and after a very important defeat that would resonate among Sicilian Greeks as well as mobilise more the anti-Greek elements among Sicans and Sicels, they could have as well gone for the kill. But not only they did not but they left back fairly quickly.

Conquest not on the plan? Yes, certainly. Afterall Carthagenians knew their opponents by heart, including their wall defenses. But if 120,000 (ok, let them be 80,000 no problem) visibly did not offer them the chance to clear out their opponents, on what basis (or....why on earth!) anyone today would suggest that the 480 invading force was the 1/4th of the mentioned numbers?

See... if we start amassing the points one after the other (Suracysian force offered for mainland Greece, later Carthagenian "expenditionary task force" at 6-digits etc. etc.) then we will get a long long list.

One can always claim that the above are loosely-binded circumstantial evidence. I agree. But for the other side, there is simply not even that one.