Xerxes Five Million Men

[hoplite14gr]

Felix reply is well grounded but Napoleon moved half a million and the system collpased. The problem of human and animal waste is considered dealt in in the 19th century but: Sewage system did exist in the bronze age cities. That means that people were aware of this problem. I want to say that the logistical propblem is imence but ancient people did take steps to deal with it.
A similar worst case effect I think was Xerxes expedition. He tried to move more men than he should at that time. Most of these people might not be combatants but slaves doing the dirty work but on the march they must made quite an impression!
I repeat that I don't buy the milions figure but an army the size of Grande Armee might have been possible for Xerxes. I believe that Artavano's objections and protests in Herodotos history are not ther just to make a nice story. Other ancient sources leave hinds about mutinies and desertions.
Kind regards

[Aryaman2]

hoplite14gr
There is a problem with your comparison, because as has been noted before, the Grande Armée in fact was composed of several armies,less than 150.000 strong each (3 French plus the Austrian and Prussian Corps) all advancing through different routes and over a front of 1.000 kms, while Xerxes army was advancing as a single force over the same route.
As general procedure, as an historian I prefer not to give any credit on numbers to literary sources, at least they are military men talking about a force that they knew first hand, and even then I am very careful, too many apparently reliable sources are in fact wrong, for instance Bernardo da Forli states that the French force that stormed Mordano in 1494 was composed of 14.000 men, he is considered a reliable source and the number is not that unlikely, however it happens that we have a muster roll for the French force, and that indicates 2.064 men in service.

[floofthegoof]

My feeling is that 100,000 men, with assorted hangers-on, might have been achieved, provided that there were adequate naval resources and they were well organized. Armies of that general size could be assembled (i.e. the Romans at Cannae, the First Crusade later) for at least a limited period of time. Two hundred thousand soldiers is, I suspect, unrealistic.

Last year I read all of Livy, and this is what I'd like to bring up about the war with Hannibal. Cannae happened very early in Roman history, and the army was made almost entirely of Italians. Rome at that time only controlled part of Sicily, Sardinia and Spain. Nothing like the empire of Xerxes. Another thing that is notable about that time period, is that Hannibal's army of ~60,000 was able to forage in Italy for 10 years! This is about 200 years after the Persian wars. That makes me guess that it would take a much larger force to starve in 1 season, although I don't really know the difference between the climate in northern greece and southern Italy.

Other things said regarding numbers:

...Next to it is the Thasian city of Stryme; between them runs the river Lisus, which now could not furnish water enough for Xerxes' army, but was exhausted.

CIX. After he had crossed the dried-up bed of the river Lisus, he passed by the Greek cities of Maronea, Dicaea, and Abdera. He passed by these, and along certain well-known lakes near them: the Ismarid lake that lies between Maronea and Stryme, and near Dicaea the Bistonian lake, into which the rivers Travus and Compsantus discharge. Near Abdera Xerxes passed no well-known lake, but crossed the river Nestus where it flows into the sea. From these regions he passed by the cities of the mainland, one of which has near it a lake of about thirty stadia in circuit, full of fish and very salty; this was drained dry by watering the beasts of burden alone. This city is called Pistyrus....

CXXVII. When he had arrived at Therma, Xerxes quartered his army there. Its encampment by the sea covered all the space from Therma and the Mygdonian country to the rivers Lydias and Haliacmon, which unite their waters in one stream and so make the border between the Bottiaean and the Macedonian1 territory. In this place the foreigners lay encamped; of the rivers just mentioned, the Cheidorus, which flows from the Crestonaean country, was the only one which could not suffice for the army's drinking but was completely drained by it....

CLXXXIV. Until the whole host reached this place and Thermopylae it suffered no hurt, and calculation proves to me that its numbers were still such as I will now show. The ships from Asia were twelve hundred and seven in number, and including the entire host of nations involved, there were a total of two hundred and forty-one thousand and four hundred men, two hundred being reckoned for each ship. On board all these ships were thirty fighting men of the Persians and Medes and Sacae in addition to the company which each had of native fighters; the number of this added contingent is thirty-six thousand, two hundred and ten. To this and to the first number I add the crews of the ships of fifty oars, calculating eighty men for each, whether there were actually more or fewer. Now seeing that, as has already been said, three thousand of these vessels were assembled, the number of men in them must have been two hundred and forty thousand. These, then, were the ships' companies from Asia, and the total number of them was five hundred and seventeen thousand, six hundred and ten. There were seven hundred thousand and one hundred footsoldiers and eighty thousand cavalrymen; to these I add the Arabian camel-riders and Libyan charioteers, estimating them to have been twenty thousand in number. The forces of sea and land added together would consist of two million, three hundred and seventeen thousand, six hundred and ten men. So far I have spoken of the force which came from Asia itself, without the train of servants which followed it and the companies of the grain-bearing craft.

CLXXXV. I must, however, also take into account the force brought from Europe, and I will rely on my best judgment in doing so. The Greeks of Thrace and the islands off Thrace furnished one hundred and twenty ships, and the companies of these ships must then have consisted of twenty-four thousand men. As regards the land army supplied by all the nations--Thracians, Paeonians, Eordi, Bottiaei, Chalcidians, Brygi, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrhaebi, Enienes, Dolopes, Magnesians, Achaeans, dwellers on the coast of Thrace--of all these I suppose the number to have been three hundred thousand. When these numbers are added to the numbers from Asia, the sum total of fighting men is two million, six hundred and forty-one thousand, six hundred and ten.

CLXXXVI. This then is the number of soldiers. As for the service-train which followed them and the crews of the light corn-bearing vessels and all the other vessels besides which came by sea with the force, these I believe to have been not fewer but more than the fighting men. Suppose, however, that they were equal in number, neither more nor fewer. If they were equal to the fighting contingent, they made up as many tens of thousands as the others. The number, then, of those whom Xerxes son of Darius led as far as the Sepiad headland and Thermopylae was five million, two hundred and eighty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty.

CLXXXVII. That is the number of Xerxes' whole force. No one, however, can say what the exact number of cooking women, and concubines, and eunuchs was, nor can one determine the number of the beasts of draught and burden, and the Indian dogs which accompanied the host; so many of them were there. It is accordingly not surprising to me that some of the streams of water ran dry. I do, however, wonder how there were provisions sufficient for so many tens of thousands, [2] for calculation shows me, that if each man received one choenix of wheat a day and no more, eleven hundred thousand and three hundred and forty bushels would be required every day.(sub1) In this calculation I take no account of the provisions for the women, eunuchs, beasts of burden and dogs. Of all those tens of thousands of men, there was not one, as regards looks and grandeur, worthier than Xerxes himself to hold that command.

sub1: The figure is wrong. Reckoning 48 choenixes to the medimnus, Herodotus has of course divided 5,283, 220 by 48. The right quotient is 110,067.083. 5,280,000 divided by 48 produces 110,000; 3220 divided by 48 leaves a dividend, after the first stage of division, of 340, and this for some unexplained reason Herodotus has added to the quotient. The medimnus is the chief Attic unit for dry measure; said to be the equivalent of six gallons.

footnote from ed. A. D. Godley copied from perseus.tufts.edu

Here is another clue regarding the bridge at the Hellspont:

XXXVI. So this was done by those who were appointed to the thankless honor, and new engineers set about making the bridges. They made the bridges as follows: in order to lighten the strain of the cables, they placed fifty-oared ships and triremes alongside each other, three hundred and sixty to bear the bridge nearest the Euxine sea, and three hundred and fourteen to bear the other; all lay obliquely to the line of the Pontus and parallel with the current of the Hellespont. After putting the ships together they let down very great anchors, both from the end of the ships on the Pontus side to hold fast against the winds blowing from within that sea, and from the other end, towards the west and the Aegean, to hold against the west and south winds. They left a narrow opening to sail through in the line of fifty-oared ships and triremes, that so whoever wanted to could sail by small craft to the Pontus or out of it. After doing this, they stretched the cables from the land, twisting them taut with wooden windlasses; they did not as before keep the two kinds apart, but assigned for each bridge two cables of flax and four of papyrus. All these had the same thickness and fine appearance, but the flaxen were heavier in proportion, for a cubit of them weighed a talent. When the strait was thus bridged, they sawed logs of wood to a length equal to the breadth of the floating supports,3 and laid them in order on the taut cables; after placing them together they then made them fast. After doing this, they carried brushwood onto the bridge; when this was all laid in order they heaped earth on it and stamped it down; then they made a fence on either side, so that the beasts of burden and horses not be frightened by the sight of the sea below them...

LVI. When Xerxes had passed over to Europe, he viewed his army crossing under the lash. Seven days and seven nights it was in crossing, with no pause.

I'll ask another question, how could we figure out the smallest army to reasonably take 7 non-stop days to cross such a bridge? Herodotus does not simply give us a number, he also gives us many other clues to the size of this army. All these clues could be fabricated, but to prove that we need to find inconsistencies.

[floofthegoof]

CLXXXVI. This then is the number of soldiers. As for the service-train which followed them and the crews of the light corn-bearing vessels and all the other vessels besides which came by sea with the force, these I believe to have been not fewer but more than the fighting men.

This statement by Herodotus I disagree with. Under the circumstances, I do not see how one could afford to have that many men stand by and watch the battles and eat food. In modern armies, even the supply guys are riflemen first, clerks second. It makes alot of sense to me that the men employed in grain transport were full fighting soldiers, already counted by means mentioned previously. By making this statement H. is casually doubling the number of troops in a single stroke of the pen.

[Aryaman2]

Well, to me this paragaph is enough to disqualify all Herodotus narrative

"The Greeks of Thrace and the islands off Thrace furnished one hundred and twenty ships, and the companies of these ships must then have consisted of twenty-four thousand men. As regards the land army supplied by all the nations--Thracians, Paeonians, Eordi, Bottiaei, Chalcidians, Brygi, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrhaebi, Enienes, Dolopes, Magnesians, Achaeans, dwellers on the coast of Thrace--of all these I suppose the number to have been three hundred thousand"
Those are disparated numbers not from remote locations but from those close to Greece.
As for Livius, I would discar most of his numbers, especially on enemy troops, he gets himself continually in trouble because first, he counts any Roman legion present in a battle at full complement, then he is at pains to inflate the enemy numbers as to be as much as possible superior to the Romans. I think in the end is a question of some method, as I said, I give credit to the numbers given by reliable first hand accounts on friendly troops, and that is it. You can, either put faith in ancient sources in general (or in some writers in particular) or not, but I think you should not give them half credit, syaing "he is inflating here, but here he is not" or "we can reduce thenumber xfolds" (on what basis?)

[floofthegoof]

Well, to me this paragaph is enough to disqualify all Herodotus narrative

"The Greeks of Thrace and the islands off Thrace furnished one hundred and twenty ships, and the companies of these ships must then have consisted of twenty-four thousand men. As regards the land army supplied by all the nations--Thracians, Paeonians, Eordi, Bottiaei, Chalcidians, Brygi, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrhaebi, Enienes, Dolopes, Magnesians, Achaeans, dwellers on the coast of Thrace--of all these I suppose the number to have been three hundred thousand"
Those are disparated numbers not from remote locations but from those close to Greece.

As for Livius, I would discar most of his numbers, especially on enemy troops, he gets himself continually in trouble because first, he counts any Roman legion present in a battle at full complement, then he is at pains to inflate the enemy numbers as to be as much as possible superior to the Romans. I think in the end is a question of some method, as I said, I give credit to the numbers given by reliable first hand accounts on friendly troops, and that is it. You can, either put faith in ancient sources in general (or in some writers in particular) or not, but I think you should not give them half credit, syaing "he is inflating here, but here he is not" or "we can reduce thenumber xfolds" (on what basis?)

That is obviously not a very good guess by Herodotus. It is good that he informs us when he is in fact guessing. When he quotes numbers reported to him, the source may have been an equally bad guesser. I think you are very right to question such numbers, and really, nobody can claim to know what they really were. However, if we don't trust the numbers given by Herodotus, and we can't attemp to estimate the number by certain other results, (drinking rivers dry, 7 days to cross a bridge, mass starvation), is it proper to look to Napoleon for the answers? Better to say that we have no idea of even a ball park figure, than to throw out some low number like 100,000. Personally, I think we can use the information given us to come up with a better number. C'mon, it's fun to speculate! :lol:

[hoplite14gr]

This statement by Herodotus I disagree with. Under the circumstances, I do not see how one could afford to have that many men stand by and watch the battles and eat food. In modern armies, even the supply guys are riflemen first, clerks second. It makes a lot of sense to me that the men employed in grain transport were full fighting soldiers, already counted by means mentioned previously. By making this statement H. is casually doubling the number of troops in a single stroke of the pen.

I must comment that if the Persian fleet had 1200 ships and half of them were triremes then that makes for around 120000 men Not all them would be combatants. Athenians alone could field 200 triremes so the whole of Persian Empire could certainly field more.
We know that in the Greek fleets the oarsmen were expected to fight. But in the Persian fleet only the Ionian vessels would possibly do that. Phoenicians and Carhidonians relied heavily on galley slaves and I do not know what is the case with the Egyptians. So yes there would be lots of poor wretches along with the fighting men.
If we accept 100000 men only then this might impress 7000 Greeks guarding Thermopylae but Herodotus say that even after Salamis the size of the Army left behind made the Greeks hesitant. If the Greeks could field 100000 troops hoplites and psiloi in Platea then how big must have been the army left with Mardonios to make them hesitant? And we talk about the army left behind not the initial army. So far the excavations in Greece say that at that time there were 10 cities in Peloponnese with enough population so that could field the same number of hoplites that Athens could (10000). Even if they sent only half that is a sizable Army for Greek standards. So how big must have been an army to make this people hesitant?

[Felix]

To: floofthegoof

In re the Second Punic War, it is worth noting that the Romans raised the army of Cannae in their home territory, and it stayed in their core territory. This is different from sending the same force on an expedition a thousand miles away, the last couple hundred into hostile territory. The Romans were also rather better organized than the Persian empire, which probably facilitated getting a large army assembled. On the issue of Hannibal, I didn't think his army had 60,000 men, particularly after fighting three major and hard-fought battles without reinforcements. Regardless of the exact number of Hannibal's army, his ability to stay in Italy is also a tremendous achievement by a phenomenal general - not a good measure of normal armies and leaders. If Hannibal's army was indeed 60,000, that is a lot less than has been mentioned on this thread - when Persian numbers have be estimated from 100,000 to 300,000 or more.

We have been using verified information to get some plausibe numbers. It isn't all in Herodotus, but the experiences of Napoleon, and the calculations of 19th and 20 th century quartermasters are very relevant and testable. Mass starvation is a predictable consequence of trying to march 300,000 men in one mass in pre-industrial conditions.

[Felix]

Concerning Plataea, I have a couple of thoughts.

First, the Greeks force was, by Greek standards, enormous. I cannot, offhand, think of any comparable sized Greek army. A Persian army of the same size was still huge by Greek standards. When trying to evaluate the odds, many observers must have felt rather overwhelmed.

As we discussed, a moderate superiority in numbers can be enough to win a battle - so if the Persians numbered, say, 120,000 to 100,000 Greeks; or 100,000 Persians to 80,000 Greeks; that is still a noticeable advantage in numbers, and might cause concern among Greek observers.

[floofthegoof]

To: floofthegoof

Mass starvation is a predictable consequence of trying to march 300,000 men in one mass in pre-industrial conditions.

300,000 is a huge army. I can hardly recall in my readings(i have plenty of reading to go yet) of an ancient army of that size excepting these Persian examples from Herodotus.

However, Herodotus mentions that the Greeks north of Thessaly prepared for months for the arrival of Xerxes army. The only time spent in actual enemy territory were a couple of forays into Attica during the destruction of Athens. It seems to me that, though it might have been somewhat burdensome for the northern Greeks, 300,000 would not have stripped Thessaly and Macedonia down to the tree-bark.

And what about the 7 days and nights to cross the bridge? My logistical experience comes from American football stadiums. Though they are design to handle high traffic. With everyone leaving at once, with almost no guidance, 70,000 football fans can clear out of a stadium in 2 or 3 hours. One thing I have left out in this discussion, is that it was obvious that Xerxes very much wanted it known to all that the size of his army was huge. Therefore the 7 days could very well be a false rumor started intentionally to dispirit the Greeks. Same with the drinking up of the rivers. The starving though, is nothing to boast about.

[floofthegoof]

Concerning Plataea, I have a couple of thoughts.

First, the Greeks force was, by Greek standards, enormous. I cannot, offhand, think of any comparable sized Greek army. A Persian army of the same size was still huge by Greek standards. When trying to evaluate the odds, many observers must have felt rather overwhelmed.

As we discussed, a moderate superiority in numbers can be enough to win a battle - so if the Persians numbered, say, 120,000 to 100,000 Greeks; or 100,000 Persians to 80,000 Greeks; that is still a noticeable advantage in numbers, and might cause concern among Greek observers.

There are a couple of indications from Herodotus that the morale of these remaining Persians was very bad. There is the example I posted above with the dinner conversation, and the following; Mardonius attacked while the Greeks were in a very confused state, yet his army just couldn't keep the pressure up. Herodotus writes that after the death of a popular Persian cavalry general, the vast majority of the Persians were slaughtered huddling in unarmed masses inside the walls of the Persian camp.

[hoplite14gr]

Felix wrote:
Concerning Plataea, I have a couple of thoughts.
First, the Greeks force was, by Greek standards, enormous. I cannot, offhand, think of any comparable sized Greek army. A Persian army of the same size was still huge by Greek standards. When trying to evaluate the odds, many observers must have felt rather overwhelmed.
As we discussed, a moderate superiority in numbers can be enough to win a battle - so if the Persians numbered, say, 120,000 to 100,000 Greeks; or 100,000 Persians to 80,000 Greeks; that is still a noticeable advantage in numbers, and might cause concern among Greek observers.

I find your comment interesting Fellix but if Athenians with 10000 succeeded against 30-50000 in Marathon, then the Platea disparity would not seem too big for them the way you suggest.

floofthegoof wrote:
Herodotus writes that after the death of a popular Persian cavalry general, the vast majority of the Persians were slaughtered huddling in unarmed masses inside the walls of the Persian camp.

Masistios death did a lot to dampen the Persian morale but the final straw was Mardonios death that left them leaderless. In the eyes of the Persians their horsemen were their "knights", their best fighters. If they failed against the Greeks like the "Immortals" in Thermopylae what the poor peasants could do more? And one can only imagine the murderous glee in the eyes of the Athenieans, Megareans, Thespians that had wached their livelihood destroyed by a foreign army all the previous year.
But that does not answer the figures problem exactly.
Though I saw may logical and well grounded postings on the subject I am still left believing that It was Xerxes ego that led a very big by the standarts of the age army that wrecked its own supply system under the burden of its numbers. After Salamis the leader escaped with his bodyguards and left the rest of the wretched souls to the tender mercies of the enemy. That alone was enough to sap theitr moral. Through out history troops that loose all hope to survival simply die.
Kind regards
Stefanos

[Aryaman2]

"Through out history troops that loose all hope to survival simply die".
That sentence caught my attention, because there is another disparity I have noticed long ago, when we read literary sources, casualties are given in many thousands, normally there are no details of wounded or missing in action, however in battles in which we have detailed accounts of casualties we see that in fact there are much more wounded and missing soldiers than killed, for example.Lee at Antietam had 13.724 casualties, but from this number only 2.700 were killed, 9.024 wounded and 2.000 missing, in Napoleonic and XVIII century battle the numbers are consistent, there is a ratio 5 to 10 wounded to 1 killed, and in a routed army missing in action and prisoners many times are most of the casualties. And of course, the 2 main source of casualties for any army in campaign were disease and desertions. I don´t believe in those numbers of hundreds or ten of thousands killed in battle.

[floofthegoof]

"Through out history troops that loose all hope to survival simply die".
That sentence caught my attention, because there is another disparity I have noticed long ago, when we read literary sources, casualties are given in many thousands, normally there are no details of wounded or missing in action, however in battles in which we have detailed accounts of casualties we see that in fact there are much more wounded and missing soldiers than killed, for example.Lee at Antietam had 13.724 casualties, but from this number only 2.700 were killed, 9.024 wounded and 2.000 missing, in Napoleonic and XVIII century battle the numbers are consistent, there is a ratio 5 to 10 wounded to 1 killed, and in a routed army missing in action and prisoners many times are most of the casualties. And of course, the 2 main source of casualties for any army in campaign were disease and desertions. I don´t believe in those numbers of hundreds or ten of thousands killed in battle.

This is true, ancient sources are always very absolute that way. When I was reading Livy, I noticed that certain of their early enemies, like the Veii or the Volcians would attack every single year, and every single year their troops would be supposedly anhilated and their city burned to the ground, yet they would always be back the following year. That can't be right.

After thinking a bit, I think I am going to adjust my estimate closer to hoplite14's 500,000. Xerxes clearly wanted to make conquests by putting on a big show, and this worked for the whole northern half of Greece. That really makes many of the observations about the huge size very suspect, since that was exactly what Xerxes wanted to be known about his army. The only thing we can trust from that evidence is what did not serve Xerxes, which is that northern Greece could not support the army. I think that 500,000 would be a good number that might also meet the condition that is was way too big for a sustainable campaign. I still think that would be a minimum though, as I do believe that the Greek cities would be able to field 100,000.

[hoplite14gr]

Aryaman2 I agree with you casualty suggestions not only for Antiedam but for almost all the battles of the 18th,19th and 20th c.entury. Most casualty stats agree or come close to ratio that you said.
In Xerxes case mismanagement, overconfidence, desease,starvation and desrtion were the case for the majority of casualties.
When I mentioned that "troops who loose hope die", I did not meant only battle casualties but every fatal adversity of the campaign.
In modern times we use or sometimes overuse the terms shell-shocked or war fatigue and I could go on and on mentioning cases but it would be out of the scope of the forum.
In 18th and 19th centuries warfare was considered "civilised" and few case of defeated or captured enemies masscre are mentioned.
In Platea though when the Persian fortification was compromised most of all these unfortunates where trapped in were probably killed especially by the vengeancefull troops of the overrun and plundered Greek areas.
But yes another number ended as slaves so they were lost for every future Persian Army.
But on the whole of Xerxes army I will agree with Rich. As I said from the begining I do not buy the millions figures but it certainly had to be big to be intimidating and big enough to crash under its own weight.
Xerxes found the hard way that it was possible to reaise large armies but dificult to sustain them.
Kind regards
Stefanos