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Xerxes Five Million Men
#76
That seems unlikely to me, first of all the rebels were not troops, second they were natives rebelling against foreign Persians, so it would be unwise to recruit men from a rebellious country to be sent with an army in campaign. In states with a national identity it is useful to start foreign wars to divert the attention from internal problems, but here we have an Empire ruled by a small minority facing continuous revolts, Xerxes could consider the Greek expedition as a way to gain prestige, even a show of power, we could even guess he was expecting a cheap victory
AKA Inaki
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#77
Usually in every empire there are the client states and the vassals.
Xerxes could have used them to suppress the subject rebels.
After Darios fiasco in Skythia they used extensively Skythian mercenaries just like Romans did with Sarmatians and Alans. Better recorded similar cases are recorded in the history of the Byzantine empire.
Prompted by Aryaman's postings I am geting the impression that the campaign in Greece might be part of revolt supression campaign or developed from a revolt supression campaign. Xerxes had the troops assembled and thought why not? Greeks put a tougher fight than he expected.
I think I will research the story from that angle and see what comes out.
Kind regards
Stefanos
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