Food supplies during Persian War

[Jona Lendering]

Imagine, your name is Xerxes and imagine you want to conquer Greece. Imagine an army of 200,000 soldiers and 8,000 horses (based on Herodotus, divided by ten; cf. Peter Greene and several other authors). Add 20,000 baggage animals (mules, dromedaries...). Then you need 400 metric ton of grain per day (880,000 lb, if I convert correctly). So you need a fleet of grain ships (number of sailors: very low; neglectable), and to protect your grain fleet, you add 650 triremes = 130,000 rowers = 175 ton of grain.

So, all in all you need 575 metric ton of grain per day.

Imagine you have one big granary in Miletus (no evidence; just a hypothesis but this is unimportant). Assume you need, on average, seven days for a ship to cross the Aegean from Miletus to the army. How many grain ships do you need?

Any help is appreciated. I can not even discover the tonnage of ancient grain ships.

(I may not be able to answer to postings here, because I am on a brief trip to Oxford.)

[hoplite14gr]

Well if we belive Herodotus he did not cross from Miletos by he marched to Troas and crossed the Hellespond.
In the thread Xerxes 5,000,000 it was more or less shown that he could not have raised more than 500,000 menat the most. That scales down the cavalry and the pack animals too.
Xerxes was counting more on the logistical support of the allies and subjects than their military support. He took the long march to pass through friently(?) territory. He would carry dried or preserved food and would rely on the cowed locals to provide the rest.
The size of the army made movement slow and after the delay of Thermopylae and the Salamis setback he could not sustain a winter campaign and his army colapsed under his own weight in a nightmarish retreat.
Kind regards

[Aryaman2]

Well if we belive Herodotus he did not cross from Miletos by he marched to Troas and crossed the Hellespond.
In the thread Xerxes 5,000,000 it was more or less shown that he could not have raised more than 500,000 menat the most. That scales down the cavalry and the pack animals too.
Xerxes was counting more on the logistical support of the allies and subjects than their military support. He took the long march to pass through friently(?) territory. He would carry dried or preserved food and would rely on the cowed locals to provide the rest.
The size of the army made movement slow and after the delay of Thermopylae and the Salamis setback he could not sustain a winter campaign and his army colapsed under his own weight in a nightmarish retreat.
Kind regards

In that thread there is another explanation as well :wink:
I proposed a number that would be at most 100.000, after reading Delbruck I would lower them to about 25.000, still more than Delbruck himself proposed. There was no huge army to feed, Greeks regularly outnumbered Persians, and Herodotus was the father of all lies 8)

[hoplite14gr]

Herodotus was not always objective- true.
I DO NOT buy the 5000000 figure.
But conscidering that your average Greek confederation like Phokic, Beotian, Locrian could easily field 15000 to 25000 heavy and light infantry and 300 to 500 cavalry, I find hard to swallow that Xerxes tried to conquer Greece with 25000. I doubt that a person who could command such a vast empire was such a fool to attack with insufficent forces.

The plains of Asia could sustain armies bigger than 100000. That was Xerxes mistake. He tried to stampede on hedgehog using an elephant! And the elephant died from desease and starvation. In other words hefailed because he overdid it.

Kind regards

[Matthew]

Sure, but Alexander and Caesar attempted fairly huge conquests with armies under 50,000 and later Medieval armies tend to be thought to be of similar proportions. It's in the nature of ancient and medieval writers to hugely exaggerate the numbers of their opponents to magnify the glory of their victories or explain the reasons for their defeat. Frankly, the demographics of ancient and medieval armies are a nightmare to deal with. Xerxes might have had a huge army in the hundreds of thousands, but more likely it was in the tens of thousands; how many tens? Who knows... There will always be proponents of both views.

25,000 combatants seems too small to me, but 100,000 combatants seems too big.

[Aryaman2]

But conscidering that your average Greek confederation like Phokic, Beotian, Locrian could easily field 15000 to 25000 heavy and light infantry and 300 to 500 cavalry, I find hard to swallow that Xerxes tried to conquer Greece with 25000.

But where did you get those figures for Greek confederation, are they any more reliable than Herodotus?

[hoplite14gr]

Alexander would see the events of 100 years before him and he could count on the support of the populations of Asia Minor both Greek and non Greek to provide him with re-enforcements.
Modern historians tend to ommit the sizable allied contignents of the Roman Armies. For example the Aetolians of Flamininus or the Gauls and Germans even Armenians and Pontics of Ceasar. So the Roman force was larger than thought to be.
Xerxes had seen the Asiatic Greek colonists being devided and defeated by his father. He expected the same in Greece and he raised a large army to cow the adversary in to submission. His allies were forced unreliable and likely to turn tail or "jump" him in the first oppotunity. Dont foget Mardonios and the Vrigae for example.
In Platea Thessalians and Phokians, though bitter enemies, swang right and left the Theban allies of Mardonius to be massacred by the Athenians,
The allies of the Romans were more reliable.
Kind regards

[Eleatic Guest]

... 8,000 horses (based on Herodotus, divided by ten; cf. Peter Greene and several other authors). Add 20,000 baggage animals (mules, dromedaries...)...

Based on numbers given at this page, I would calculate the daily consumption of food and water of horses and baggae animals as follows:

300 kg average per animal
6 kilo grain per day
36 liter water per day

= 6 x 28,000 = 168,000 kilo = 168 tons grain per day
= 36 x 28,000 = 1,008,000 liter water per day

And now imagine rugged Greece in the summer heat...


PS: Is there any literature on logistics of Roman and Greek armies?

I would be especially interested in a comparison between infantry and cavalry armies from a logistical point of view. I have the faint idea that cavalry armies lose a great deal of their natural superiority in terms of mobility vis-a-vis infantry armies through their higher supply demands in terms of food, pasture and water. Any reference to a starting point in literature would be greatly welcomed!

Regards
Eleatic Guest

[hoplite14gr]

But where did you get those figures for Greek confederation, are they any more reliable than Herodotus?

The tax and recruting records of the Athenian League survive in plaques now in the National Archaology Meuseum in Athens.
Excavations in Sparta by the British Archological School in 1916 yielded the Patroa Records curved on the homes and verify that raising the eight 600 men Morae was possible. The excavtions of Thespiae in 1961 showed the ancient "Kliri" limits and verified the citys ability to maintain 1000 hoplites in Classical times. Thespiae and Platea both cable of fielding 2000 hoplites were afraid of Theba and were Allied to Athens. That means that Theba to defy all three had at least a force to fight all three simultaneously. The 5th century military catalog of the Aentida tribe in Athens survives in the Museum too and mentions 2000 zevgitae-property owners required to go to war as hoplites. Add their baggage carriers and you have 2000 psiloi at least. That only for one of the 10 Attik tribes.
The catalog of Eteovoutadae was found in a worse state but 300 names
were identified. Ultraviolet light test that are to be done might yield more data. The Neosikoi of Peiraus were excavated and it was found that in the 5th/4th Century they housed 400 trirems. That means 6000 rowers-psiloi and 4000 hoplites-marines needed if there were to be fully manned and that is a conservative estimate.
Kallio of Phokis, the smalest city of the Phokian confederation was excavated in 1987 before coverd by the river Mornos and was found to house approximatly 1000 to 1200 families. Take in to account that these families had more than 2 children usually and that Phokians are mentioned not to have servants or baggage carriers and you have 600 to 1000 combatants only for a small city. The Phokian confederation had 10 cities most of them larger than Kallio.
Kind regards

[Matthew]

Alexander would see the events of 100 years before him and he could count on the support of the populations of Asia Minor both Greek and non Greek to provide him with re-enforcements.

This seems a little on the speculative side to me... Lol! Seriously, though, I don't see Alexander learning directly from the mistakes of the Persians a hundred years before and I doubt he could 'count on' much in the way of support in Asia Minor; it might have been there, it might not have been; seems like a big risk to take to me, but then I wasn't there...

Modern historians tend to ommit the sizable allied contignents of the Roman Armies. For example the Aetolians of Flamininus or the Gauls and Germans even Armenians and Pontics of Ceasar. So the Roman force was larger than thought to be.

Agreed, but the lack of evidence is exactly the problem. Casear's 'Roman' force seems to have been around 30,000, but how that force was fielded and how many Auxillaries there might have been is another question. I doubt it exceeded 60,000 (more auxillaries than legionaries sounds like a recipe for disaster), but it's just an opinion.

Xerxes had seen the Asiatic Greek colonists being devided and defeated by his father. He expected the same in Greece and he raised a large army to cow the adversary in to submission.

True, but 'how large?' is the question, or rather 'what is large?.'

His allies were forced unreliable and likely to turn tail or "jump" him in the first oppotunity. Dont foget Mardonios and the Vrigae for example.. In Platea Thessalians and Phokians, though bitter enemies, swang right and left the Theban allies of Mardonius to be massacred by the Athenians,

Always a risk when using allies. Sounds like a good reason not to bring many of them! [i.e. only those 'military hostages' required to be assured of peace at home]

The allies of the Romans were more reliable.

But how much more? Not by much in the First Century BC, I would have thought, but the quality would no doubt have varied over time and space.

[Jona Lendering]

Is there any literature on logistics of Roman and Greek armies?

You will like the book by Donald Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (1978). It contains the strangest errors but as a whole, it is a very, very good book.

As to the preceding discussion of the numbers of the Persian army: the numbers I quoted are mentioned by several authors, including Munro, Hignett, Burn, Green. Some estimates are a bit higher, others a bit lower.

What I need to know is the capacity of a grain ship. Anyone?

[Eleatic Guest]

What I need to know is the capacity of a grain ship. Anyone?

Unfortunately no direct mention of cargo capacity.

"The trade ships become round and bellied with a relation of 3 or 4 to 1 and they have first one mast and are nearly always built with a square rig."

Jochen Brennecke, Geschichte der Seefahrt, p.25

I know that the upper limit of later cogs were 500 t and the above description at least superficially resembles the characteristic features of cogs (bellied, square rig, one mast). In any case, later Roman grain ships were much larger than their earlier Greek counterparts, so dont go with their sizes.

Regards

[Jona Lendering]

Thanks!

[Aryaman2]

But where did you get those figures for Greek confederation, are they any more reliable than Herodotus?

The tax and recruting records of the Athenian League survive in plaques now in the National Archaology Meuseum in Athens.
Excavations in Sparta by the British Archological School in 1916 yielded the Patroa Records curved on the homes and verify that raising the eight 600 men Morae was possible. The excavtions of Thespiae in 1961 showed the ancient "Kliri" limits and verified the citys ability to maintain 1000 hoplites in Classical times. Thespiae and Platea both cable of fielding 2000 hoplites were afraid of Theba and were Allied to Athens. That means that Theba to defy all three had at least a force to fight all three simultaneously. The 5th century military catalog of the Aentida tribe in Athens survives in the Museum too and mentions 2000 zevgitae-property owners required to go to war as hoplites. Add their baggage carriers and you have 2000 psiloi at least. That only for one of the 10 Attik tribes.
The catalog of Eteovoutadae was found in a worse state but 300 names
were identified. Ultraviolet light test that are to be done might yield more data. The Neosikoi of Peiraus were excavated and it was found that in the 5th/4th Century they housed 400 trirems. That means 6000 rowers-psiloi and 4000 hoplites-marines needed if there were to be fully manned and that is a conservative estimate.
Kallio of Phokis, the smalest city of the Phokian confederation was excavated in 1987 before coverd by the river Mornos and was found to house approximatly 1000 to 1200 families. Take in to account that these families had more than 2 children usually and that Phokians are mentioned not to have servants or baggage carriers and you have 600 to 1000 combatants only for a small city. The Phokian confederation had 10 cities most of them larger than Kallio.
Kind regards

The findings on the total size of populations are not indicative per se, for instance the US has a population of 290 millions, but the US army was able to recruit just 72.000 new soldiers last year. It is far more important the military system, for instance France in the mid XV century had an estimated population of 20 millions, but the French army fielded less than 15.000 soldiers.
The military catalog you talk about the Aentida tribe is much more interesting, I didn´t know about it, could you please post some details?

[hoplite14gr]

The major obstacle is that I do not know of bibliograpfy in English. I have only the museum photos and the Greek literature on them.
These finds have been quoted in Osprey books so English bibliography is definetly available.
The "KLIRI" are stong evidnece of hoplite strength because they were granded to those who would serve as hoplites.
In modern states citizens can vote and have social securrity without military service. In ancient Greece you could vote only if you could fight.
The term klirotos for the men liable for service exists up to today.
Kind regards