11-22-2003, 09:41 AM
Kalvan,<br>
<br>
One thing we know for sure – soldiers in antiquity had a LOT of wounds. As far as I know, there was nothing unusual for an average valiant warrior to have 7 and more wounds. With all my respect to Greek doctors they were not THAT good to seriously ‘spoil’ wound statistics concerning mortality of generals and soldiers. IMHO the crucial thing for survival of any particular human being in that time were vitality of his body and seriousness of the wound.<br>
<br>
But that’s not the point.<br>
For me it is not interesting if someone died or was cured from some wound.<br>
What we have is statistics. One human body was seriously wounded 7 times: 6 times by missile weapons and 1 time by sword. That’s proportion, isn’t it?<br>
I assume that the wounds in question are serious. Alexander wouldn’t have noticed them if they had been just scratches.<br>
I am provoked to make a wild guess: in an average statistical battle against armies of region of Persian empire the casualties (severely wounded and killed) were like this – six parts inflicted by missile weapons and one part by non-missile weapon.<br>
<br>
Of course, that is nor rock-hard statistics. It is skewed by the fact that Alexander was a cavalryman, usually belonged to crack troops and had best quality armor available. But that’s the best we have.<br>
<p></p><i></i>
<br>
One thing we know for sure – soldiers in antiquity had a LOT of wounds. As far as I know, there was nothing unusual for an average valiant warrior to have 7 and more wounds. With all my respect to Greek doctors they were not THAT good to seriously ‘spoil’ wound statistics concerning mortality of generals and soldiers. IMHO the crucial thing for survival of any particular human being in that time were vitality of his body and seriousness of the wound.<br>
<br>
But that’s not the point.<br>
For me it is not interesting if someone died or was cured from some wound.<br>
What we have is statistics. One human body was seriously wounded 7 times: 6 times by missile weapons and 1 time by sword. That’s proportion, isn’t it?<br>
I assume that the wounds in question are serious. Alexander wouldn’t have noticed them if they had been just scratches.<br>
I am provoked to make a wild guess: in an average statistical battle against armies of region of Persian empire the casualties (severely wounded and killed) were like this – six parts inflicted by missile weapons and one part by non-missile weapon.<br>
<br>
Of course, that is nor rock-hard statistics. It is skewed by the fact that Alexander was a cavalryman, usually belonged to crack troops and had best quality armor available. But that’s the best we have.<br>
<p></p><i></i>
