Ancient army numbers

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Ancient battles and especially those fought with the spear or pike by armored soldiers, very seldom meant high death rates for the winner.

Sure - this is a claim. But based on what proofs / sources exactly? :twisted:

You know this from what? From... sure, from those Ancient sources which always claim that the winner lost like "10 killed 5 wounded" and the loser "100000000000 killed, 30000000000000 captured and 2232235023542323 wounded" :?: Exactly. :mrgreen:

Or maybe you examined some battlefield and counted skeletons?

Surely not because such well-preserved battlefields do not exist.

We have more (and more of reliable ones, first of all) contemporary evidences regarding casualties in Medieval battles - which were relatively similar in style to Ancient battles (well, much more similar than battles from any other historical era which came later - after Medieval).

Arrian reported the numbers of his sources, numbers that his considerable experience made him view as realistic.

Arrian was a historian - not a military commander. And historians often now nothing what is realistic and what is not in warfare. This is true also in our modern times. That some guy considered something as realistic doesn't mean that it was indded.

Casualties in general is another thing and usually the wounded were many times more than the dead.

This is not true.

At least not for Medieval or Early Modern Era battles (more similar to Ancient battles than anything later - because battles from both these eras consisted of many casualties suffered from melee weapons or pre-gunpowder missile weapons). The ratio of wounded to killed was like 1:1 or at most 2:1.

"Many times more" wounded than killed is something typical for 19th century battles (as well as WW1 of 1914 - 1918). But in battles where close combat was the main killer usually the number of wounded was not much bigger than the number of killed.

Of course among casualties from arrows this proportion was more in favour of wounded, since wounds inflicted by arrows were typically not so lethal (unless we are talking about some more advanced types of bows - for example the "great bows" which were used by some Persian units at Gaugamela - for example by Mardian archers - those bows were reported in those ancient sources to be capable of piercing shields and armour - another fact which disproves Arrian casualty number of 100 Macedonians killed).

As for the casualties reported for the Companions, you are making a mistake that I see very often. You think that whatever casualties they sustained have to be but a small part of the total because they numbered but a small part of the total. This is not so.

No - I don't think that the Companions suffered only a small portion of total casualties.

But you missed one important fact apparently - that they suffered those 60 killed just in one engagement, not in entire battle. Both before that clash and after that clash they were involved in other fightings. So 60 killed refers just to one fight, not to entire battle - both before that fight and after that fight there must have been further killed among the Companions.

.Some would eventually die, some would be saved by the doctors that followed the train. There is absolutely no rule that says that when you are facing x enemies you have to sustain x/y deaths

I know this mate.

But when I read description of a battle, I get some picture of how many casualties could be sustained in that battle by each side. And in case of Gaugamela in all existing original (Ancient) descriptions of this battle, there are mentioned various "episodes" of this battle, in which some Macedonian units must have suffered considerable casualties. Just to mention Greek mercenary / allied cavalry being defeated on both flanks by enemy cavalry, or to mention Macedonian baggage train being attacked and largely slaughtered by Persian cavalry which before that broke through Macedonian lines (Arrian, III, 14). And many other similar episodes. It did not went completely smoothly for the Macedonians and many Persian units fought to the last man and did not collapse like their king and many other units.

and in order to push an argument that Alexander could not have suffered that few casualties one has to just throw the whole Greek historiography out of the window.

But who is throwing the whole Greek historiography out of the window?

I am not for sure. I am basing my claims on Grek historiography - namely on descriptions of the battle from Greek historiography, which describe this battle in such a way that clearly disproves the casualty claims made by the same historiography (again it contradicts itself) - because we can see many episodes in the battle of Gaugamela, which must have produced considerable casualties on the Macedonian side.

Some of them were mentioned above.

Apart from that Greek historiography also tells us that some of Persian archers were armed in "great bows" - as they are called there - which could pierce Macedonian shields and armours. For example Mardian archers had such weapons at their disposal.

There were reports at hand, however trustworthy and these were quoted by the Greek historians.

Any proofs for this claim? That Ancient armies had casualty reporting systems?

By the way - if numbers were from casualty reports, they would not be so round - but detailed (for example 112 not 100 killed) and they would not contradict each other so much (Arrian - 100, Curtius - 300, Diodorus - 500, etc., etc.).

Many times they (Arrian too) would not give numbers, other times, they would criticize them as improbable, impossible, conflicting etc.

Please don't apply modern standards to Ancient historians.

If by symbolic you mean "plainly wrong" then yes, reports historians got and still get often were and are wrong, so he of course could be wrong. The thing is that he did not think he was wrong, which to me is most important.

I think accounts are much more frequently wrong than actual written reports / documents (but again I don't think that Ancient armies had something like casualty reports - considering that the main purpose of reporting casualties is to check how many reinforcements are necessary for each unit, and Alexander was incorporating to his army any reinforcements he could get, without paying much attention how many are "necessary" and how many are not "necessary" - IMO).

So maybe they had those casualty info from accounts of so called "witnesses".

It is wrong to take for granted that Arrian or anyone else deliberately hid a truth which was known to him.

Did I ever write such thing?

Actually if you read my post above you can see that I wrote that Arrian most likely had no freaking idea how big were Macedonian casualties.

If he had no freaking idea about a truth, he could not deliberately hid it.

There was absolutely no infantry clash

I think you are wrong here.

But if you aren't wrong then it means that Persian casualties must have been relatively low as well.

The Persian and Greek cavalry did not charge into each other as Arrian (and not only him) very clearly describes.

Actually you are wrong - Arrian and also others describe cavalry charging into each other and even into infantry and baggage train. For example:

(...) Simmias and his brigade were not yet able to start with Alexander in pursuit, but causing the phalanx to halt there, he took part in the struggle, because the left wing of the Macedonians was reported to be hard pressed. In this part of the field, their line being broken, some of the Indians and of the Persian cavalry burst through the gap towards the baggage of the Macedonians; and there the action became desperate. For the Persians fell boldly on the men, who were most of them unarmed, and never expected that any men would cut through the double phalanx and break through upon them. When the Persians made this attack, the foreign prisoners also assisted them by falling upon the Macedonians in the midst of the action. But the commanders of the men who had been posted as a reserve to the first phalanx, learning what was taking place, quickly moved from the position which they had been ordered to take, and coming upon the Persians in the rear, killed many of them there collected round the baggage. But the rest of them gave way and fled. The Persians on the right wing, who had not yet become aware of the flight of Darius, rode round Alexander's left wing and attacked Parmenio in flank. (...)

Another fragment is already above (the one when he mentions sixty killed Companions).

And there are other fragments too.

They fought like horsemen normally fought at the time, that is attack in squadrons, hurl their javelins and then retreat as other squadrons did the same.

Only light cavalry fought like this, while heavy & medium cavalry - and both sides had numerous heavy & medium cavalry at Gaugamela - fought in a completely different way (well, medium cavalry sometimes carried both javelins and sidearms + shields - so they could fight both ways).

And by the way even light cavalry sometimes fought "unlike normally".

For example check the Gaius Sallustius Crispus' account of the Jugurthine war.

While describing the battle at the outskirts of Zama (a much later one, against Jugurtha) in 108 B.C., Sallustius (59.) writes:

"(...) during the fight Numidian cavalrymen, self-confident (...) contrary to the usually applied tactics consisting of attacking and retreating*, were directly knocking against the enemy, breaking their battle array and sowing confusion into their ranks; hereby (...) almost achieving victory over Romans."

*So called skirmishing.

So here Sallustius gives an example of light cavalry (Numidians) fighting like heavy cavalry.

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Edit:

And for example Macedonian sarissophoroi lancers - although being lightly armoured (light cavalry) - also fought like heavy cavalry, using their lances. Especially they fought like this after being incorporated to Companions (before that they played mainly the role of scouts, IIRC, but sometimes also charged enemy lines).

Sarissophoroi weren't the only lightly armoured, but still shock lance-armed cavalry formation in history. For example in Medieval times and Early Modern Era there were also such cavalry formations in Europe, which were very lightly armoured (sometimes had no armour except of shields - which sarissophoroi also most likely had, as well as helmets) but armed in very long lances and fought as shock cavalry - not skirmish cavalry.