Could the Persian Empire logistically support an army several million strong?

[Jim Webster]

I was wondering whether this series on Roman armies on the march might help at all.  Obviously, there are limitations e.g. the assumption of the use of relatively narrow columns but some of the comparative stuff on column makeup and the supplemental section on pace, loads etc. may be handy.

Interesting that disciplined armies tended to march in relatively narrow columns.
There again anybody who has done much cross country walking will tell you that actually, the 'road' is normally so much faster that it's worth queuing at choke points

[Patrick Waterson]

We have no evidence of ancient armies using this technique. In a very boring manner they used passes just like everybody else.

We might have.

Assyrian kings make repeated references to their armies scaling not just hills but mountains as part of their transit into an area; Tiglath-pileser I even refers to something the translators render as 'iron sledges' to get chariots up mountains.

Have we any evidence at all that the Persian army had no problem moving cross country?

Let me once again mention Herodotus VII.115

"The route which the army of Xerxes took remains to this day untouched; the Thracians neither plough nor sow it, but hold it in great honour."

This tells us that the route taken is wide enough to be ploughed and sown and that the passage of the army made a huge impression on the Thracians.

Remember that in this period there were no roads* and armies habitually moved across country.

*With the exception of the Royal Persian Highway.  But that was within the Persian Empire and was intended for rapid transit of Persian messengers.

[Patrick Waterson]

I was wondering whether this series on Roman armies on the march might help at all.

From what I can see, it looks very good for Roman armies, misleading for Greek and Macedonian armies and not really representative of Biblical armies at all.  The Achaemenid army was the last of the Biblical pattern armies, and one may note in Book IX of Herodotus the Greek supply and marching arrangements at Plataea, which bear no relation whatsoever to the Roman series and can be contrasted with those of Xerxes' army in Book VII, which also bear no relationship to the Roman pattern.

Frankly, if there were the slightest relationship between Roman and Achaemenid practice, it would be a gift for archaeology and the study of history because one could extrapolate so many things.

[Jim Webster]

We have no evidence of ancient armies using this technique. In a very boring manner they used passes just like everybody else.

We might have.

Assyrian kings make repeated references to their armies scaling not just hills but mountains as part of their transit into an area; Tiglath-pileser I even refers to something the translators render as 'iron sledges' to get chariots up mountains.

Yes, well many people have campaigned in mountains. Even dragging carrying cannon behind them on mules. But they still followed tracks and roads. This doesn't show that the Assyrians travelled like locusts and a front measured in thousands of yards

[Jim Webster]

Let me once again mention Herodotus VII.115

"The route which the army of Xerxes took remains to this day untouched; the Thracians neither plough nor sow it, but hold it in great honour."

This tells us that the route taken is wide enough to be ploughed and sown and that the passage of the army made a huge impression on the Thracians.

Which might merely mean that it was trampled so hard by a narrow column that they couldn't break the surface with their ards. It's true that primitive ploughs do have a lot of trouble with hard packed ground.

It says absolutely nothing about the width of the road. With this level of technology fields were often small. When ploughing the field only really needs to be long in one direction. 

[Andreas Johansson]

Interesting that disciplined armies tended to march in relatively narrow columns.
There again anybody who has done much cross country walking will tell you that actually, the 'road' is normally so much faster that it's worth queuing at choke points

I may have pointed this out before, but in better attested ages, it was consistently found that narrow columns could maintain higher speeds than wide lines, because of the difficulty of maintaining alignment in the later. So I submit that very wide columns are a non-starter: they'll either move ridiculously slowly, or turn into mobs.

(Patrick will now doubtlessly postulate that Xerxes had hit on principles for formation maintenance that eluded dabblers like Frederick II and Napoleon.)

[Patrick Waterson]

Herodotus' veracity and judgement have occasionally been questioned during this discussion, so it may be interesting to see how he handles source material.  The material in question is in Herodotus VIII.117-120 and deals with the transit of Xerxes from Europe to Asia on his return journey.

"Now the Persians, journeying through Thrace to the passage, made haste to cross to Abydos in their ships, for they found the bridges no longer made fast but broken by a storm. There their march halted, and more food was given them than on their way. [2] Then by reason of their immoderate gorging and the change of the water which they drank, many of the army that had survived died. The rest came with Xerxes to Sardis.

There is, however, another tale, which is this: when Xerxes came in his march from Athens to Eion on the Strymon, he travelled no farther than that by land, but committed his army to Hydarnes to be led to the Hellespont. He himself embarked and set sail for Asia in a Phoenician ship. [2] In the course of this voyage he was caught by a strong wind called the Strymonian, which lifted up the waves. This storm bearing the harder upon him by reason of the heavy load of the ship (for the Persians of his company who were on the deck were so many), the king grew afraid and cried to the ship's pilot asking him if there were any way of deliverance. To this the man said, [3] "Sire, there is none, if we do not rid ourselves of these many who are on board." Hearing that, it is said, Xerxes said to the Persians, "Now it is for you to prove your concern for your king, for it seems that my deliverance rests with you." [4] At this they bowed and leapt into the sea. The ship, now much lighter, came by these means safe to Asia. No sooner had Xerxes disembarked on land, than he made the pilot a gift of a golden crown for saving the king's life but cut off his head for being the death of many Persians."

Here we have a classic historian's dilemma: two sources, and they are in total contradiction.  Let us see how Herodotus handles this problem.

First, the application of cultural knowledge and logic:

"This is the other tale of Xerxes' return; but I for my part believe neither the story of the Persians' fate nor any other part of it. For if indeed the pilot had spoken to Xerxes in this way, I think that there is not one in ten thousand who would not say that the king would have bidden the men on deck (who were Persians and of the best blood of Persia) descend into the ship's hold, and would have taken from the Phoenician rowers a number equal to the number of the Persians and cast them into the sea. No, the truth is that Xerxes did as I have already said, and returned to Asia with his army by road."

Next comes the application of further information:

"There is further proof of this, for it is known that when Xerxes came to Abdera in his return, he made a compact of friendship with its people and gave them a golden sword and a gilt tiara. As the people of Abdera say (but for my part I wholly disbelieve them), it was here that Xerxes in his flight back from Athens first loosed his girdle, as being here in safety. Now Abdera lies nearer to the Hellespont than the Strymon and Eion, where they say that he took ship."

Note incidentally Herodotus' evaluation of the Abderite story, part being rejected presumably on the ground sof implausibility and part accepted on the ground of logic.

[Jim Webster]

Remember that in this period there were no roads* and armies habitually moved across country.

*With the exception of the Royal Persian Highway.  But that was within the Persian Empire and was intended for rapid transit of Persian messengers.

I am not stupid. But archaeologists talk about iron age roads and tracks in this country, none of which had a metalled surface.

Indeed they talk about tracks and roads in Greece, but there again the Greeks were a sad pedestrian people who didn't realise that merely by ignoring terrain they could have advanced across a far wider frontage. 

[Jim Webster]

Interesting that disciplined armies tended to march in relatively narrow columns.
There again anybody who has done much cross country walking will tell you that actually, the 'road' is normally so much faster that it's worth queuing at choke points

I may have pointed this out before, but in better attested ages, it was consistently found that narrow columns could maintain higher speeds than wide lines, because of the difficulty of maintaining alignment in the later. So I submit that very wide columns are a non-starter: they'll either move ridiculously slowly, or turn into mobs.

(Patrick will now doubtlessly postulate that Xerxes had hit on principles for formation maintenance that eluded dabblers like Frederick II and Napoleon.)

walking cross country without the terrain being a little cleared is a nightmare. This is why you'll see walkers following sheep paths etc.
it's so much faster and you've far less chance of catching your foot in a hole hidden in the knee deep lush grass people are going to come along and cut for animal fodder and twisting your ankle.

[Patrick Waterson]

I may have pointed this out before, but in better attested ages, it was consistently found that narrow columns could maintain higher speeds than wide lines, because of the difficulty of maintaining alignment in the later. So I submit that very wide columns are a non-starter: they'll either move ridiculously slowly, or turn into mobs.

But is this considering battlefield formations (for which the above would be true) or troops on the march, for whom the maintenance of formation was an optional extra (very optional in some cases)?  It might be worth looking at how Zulus moved, for example.

Indeed they talk about tracks and roads in Greece, but there again the Greeks were a sad pedestrian people who didn't realise that merely by ignoring terrain they could have advanced across a far wider frontage. 

Why not take a look at the Greek retreat from Plataea in Herodotus Book IX?  It might be a good idea to do this before (or better still, instead of) posting any more comments in this vein.

[Andreas Johansson]

I may have pointed this out before, but in better attested ages, it was consistently found that narrow columns could maintain higher speeds than wide lines, because of the difficulty of maintaining alignment in the later. So I submit that very wide columns are a non-starter: they'll either move ridiculously slowly, or turn into mobs.

But is this considering battlefield formations (for which the above would be true) or troops on the march, for whom the maintenance of formation was an optional extra (very optional in some cases)?  It might be worth looking at how Zulus moved, for example.

AFAIK, nobody was daft enough to use "lines of march". But if your "columns" aren't concerned with maintaining a semblance of formation - i.e. if they're willing to turn into mobs as I put it above - I withdraw this particular objection.

[Jim Webster]

Indeed they talk about tracks and roads in Greece, but there again the Greeks were a sad pedestrian people who didn't realise that merely by ignoring terrain they could have advanced across a far wider frontage. 

Why not take a look at the Greek retreat from Plataea in Herodotus Book IX?  It might be a good idea to do this before (or better still, instead of) posting any more comments in this vein.

So they resolved in their council that if the Persians held off through that day from giving battle, they would go to the Island.22 This is ten furlongs distant from the Asopus and the Gargaphian spring, near which their army then lay, and in front of the town of Plataea. [2] It is like an island on dry land because the river in its course down from Cithaeron into the plain is parted into two channels, and there is about three furlongs space in between till presently the two channels unite again, and the name of that river is Oeroe, who (as the people of the country say ) was the daughter of Asopus. [3] To that place then they planned to go so that they might have plenty of water for their use and not be harmed by the horsemen, as now when they were face to face with them; and they resolved to change places in the second watch of the night, lest the Persians should see them setting forth and the horsemen press after them and throw them into confusion. [4] Furthermore, they resolved that when they had come to that place, which is encircled by the divided channels of Asopus' daughter Oeroe as she flows from Cithaeron, they would in that night send half of their army to Cithaeron, to remove their followers who had gone to get the provisions; for these were cut off from them on Cithaeron. 52.

Having made this plan, all that day they suffered constant hardship from the cavalry which continually pressed upon them. When the day ended, however, and the horsemen stopped their onslaught, then at that hour of the night at which it was agreed that they should depart, most of them rose and departed, not with intent to go to the place upon which they had agreed. Instead of that, once they were on their way, they joyfully shook off the horsemen and escaped to the town of Plataea. In the course of their flight they came to the temple of Hera which is outside of that town, twenty furlongs distant from the Gargaphian spring and piled their arms in front of the temple. 53.

So they encamped around the temple of Hera. Pausanias, however, seeing their departure from the camp, gave orders to the Lacedaemonians to take up their arms likewise and follow the others who had gone ahead, supposing that these were making for the place where they had agreed to go. [2] Thereupon, all the rest of the captains being ready to obey Pausanias, Amompharetus son of Poliades, the leader of the Pitanate23 battalion, refused to flee from the barbarians or (save by compulsion) bring shame on Sparta; the whole business seemed strange to him, for he had not been present in the council recently held. [3] Pausanias and Euryanax were outraged that Amompharetus disobeyed them. Still more, however, they disliked that his refusing would compel them to abandon the Pitanate battalion, for they feared that if they fulfilled their agreement with the rest of the Greeks and abandoned him, Amompharetus and his men would be left behind to perish. [4] Bearing this in mind, they kept the Laconian army where it was and tried to persuade Amompharetus that he was in the wrong. 54.

So they reasoned with Amompharetus, he being the only man left behind of all the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans. As for the Athenians, they stood unmoved at their post, well aware that the purposes and the promises of Lacedaemonians were not alike. [2] But when the army left its station, they sent a horseman of their own to see whether the Spartans were attempting to march or whether they were not intending to depart, and to ask Pausanias what the Athenians should do. 55.

When the messenger arrived among the Lacedaemonians, he saw them arrayed where they had been, and their chief men by now in hot dispute. For though Euryanax and Pausanias reasoned with Amompharetus, that the Lacedaemonians should not be endangered by remaining there alone, they could in no way prevail upon him. At last, when the Athenian messenger came among them, angry words began to pass. [2] In this wrangling Amompharetus took up a stone with both hands and threw it down before Pausanias' feet, crying that it was the pebble with which he voted against fleeing from the strangers (meaning thereby the barbarians). Pausanias called him a madman; then when the Athenian messenger asked the question with which he had been charged, Pausanias asked the man to tell the Athenians of his present condition, and begged them to join themselves to the Lacedaemonians and, as for departure, to do as they did. 56.

The messenger then went back to the Athenians. When dawn found the dispute still continuing, Pausanias, who had up to this point kept his army where it was, now gave the word and led all the rest away between the hillocks, the Tegeans following, for he supposed that Amompharetus would not stay behind when the rest of the Lacedaemonians left him; this was in fact exactly what happened. [2] The Athenians marshalled themselves and marched, but not by the same way as the Lacedaemonians, who stayed close to the broken ground and the lower slopes of Cithaeron in order to stay clear of the Persian horse. The Athenians marched down into the plain instead. 57.

Now Amompharetus at first supposed that Pausanias would never have the heart to leave him and his men, and he insisted that they should remain where they were and not leave their post. When Pausanias' men had already proceeded some distance, he thought that they had really left him. He accordingly bade his battalion take up its arms and led it in marching step after the rest of the column, [2] which after going a distance of ten furlongs, was waiting for Amompharetus by the stream Molois and the place called Argiopium, where there is a shrine of Eleusinian Demeter. The reason for their waiting was that, if Amompharetus and his battalion should not leave the place where it was posted but remain there, they would then be able to assist him. [3] No sooner had Amompharetus' men come up than the barbarians' cavalry attacked the army, for the horsemen acted as they always had. When they saw no enemy on the ground where the Greeks had been on the days before this, they kept riding forward and attacked the Greeks as soon as they overtook them. 58.

When Mardonius learned that the Greeks had departed under cover of night and saw the ground deserted, he called to him Thorax of Larissa and his brothers Eurypylus and Thrasydeius and said: [2] "What will you say now, sons of Aleuas, when you see this place deserted? For you, who are their neighbors, kept telling me that Lacedaemonians fled from no battlefield and were the masters of warfare. These same men, however, you just saw changing their post, and now you and all of us see that they have fled during the night. The moment they had to measure themselves in battle with those that are in very truth the bravest on earth, they plainly showed that they are men of no account, and all other Greeks likewise. [3] Now you, for your part, were strangers to the Persians, and I could readily pardon you for praising these fellows, who were in some sort known to you; but I marvelled much more that Artabazus, be he ever so frightened, should give us a coward's advice to strike our camp, and march away to be besieged in Thebes. Of this advice the king will certainly hear from me, but it will be discussed elsewhere. [4] Now we must not permit our enemies to do as they want; they must be pursued till they are overtaken and pay the penalty for all the harm they have done the Persians." 59.

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So there you have it. What in that provides evidence for armies of hundreds of thousands advancing over a very broad front?

If there is any evidence it is of the troops falling back in Column (red)

So a poorly organised army tries to fall back and ends up in chaos. It would have gone better if they'd all followed off in one column 

[Justin Swanton]

On the subject of tidy formations or not tidy formations when in a wide column, Asklepiodotus maintains that the open order of 2 yards frontage per file is a natural formation and doesn't have a name. I would like to suggest that when a crowd of people walk cross-country on a broad frontage they instinctively keep about 2 yards between themselves and those around them, in the same way a flock of birds keeps a certain distance between themselves to avoid midair collisions. So the Persians, preserving neither ranks nor files, and sometimes even mixing up their national groupings, advance along a wide avenue with a spacing that permits getting around any obstacles in their way like rocks without slowing their pace.

Of course this needs to be proved. Any examples of crowds on the march in the open?

[Patrick Waterson]

If there is any evidence it is of the troops falling back in Column (red)

Alas not; translator's artefact.

IX.57.1: "As for Amompharetus, at first he did not really believe that Pausanias would really dare to leave him behind; he therefore remained form in his resolve to keep his men at their post; when however Pausanias and his troops were now some way off, Amompharetus, thinking himself forsaken in good earnest, ordered his band take their arms and led them at a walk towards the main army."

But one does need to read further.

In IX.59, the Achaemenid army takes up the pursuit, with the Persian cavalry and infantry leading, "at their best speed and in great disorder and disarray," a description which indicates that nobody in their own army could possibly have overtaken them.  Mardonius crosses the Asopus in pursuit, but "He could not see the Athenians; for, as they had taken the way of the plain, they were hidden from his sight by the hills; he therefore led his troops on against the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans." - IX.59.2

Observe that while the Spartans were moving through the hills, the Athenians 'had taken the way of the plain'.  These contingents were travelling in parallel, i.e. on a broad front, not in series (as would be the case with a march column).  This is confirmed by what happened next.

In IX.60, Pausanias "at the time when the cavalry first fell upon him" sends a horseman to the Athenians asking for their help.  In IX.61, the Athenians are anxious to go and help them, but

"... as they were upon the march, the Greeks on the King's side, whose place in the line had been opposite theirs, fell upon them and so harassed them by their attack that it was not possible for them to give the succour they desired."

Since Pausanias sent his horsemen with the appeal for aid "at the time when the cavalry first fell upon him," (IX.60) the Medising Greeks would not have had time or opportunity to march around the Persian/Spartan imbroglio before the Athenians could arrive.  Their direct interception of the Athenians is ascribed by Herodotus to their 'place in the line' having been opposite that of the Athenians, which indicates that not only did the armies encamp in line of battle, the Greek army also retired en masse with its contingents parallel, in more or less the same relative positions they had been when in line of battle.  This was an army travelling from point A to point B without expectation of battle, and it seems fair to conclude that this was how a Greek army customarily moved, with the one caveat that size presumably matters: a Spartan contingent alone would probably not feel any compulsion to spread itself across both hills and plain but would use the one or the other.

One may also note that when attacked by the Persian cavalry, the Spartans and Tegeans are almost immediately in a defensive formation, not cut up by cavalry attacks on a long marching column.  This in itself would indicate they were moving in a broad front, shallow depth configuration, allowing them to assemble rapidly into combat formation.

[Jim Webster]

On the subject of tidy formations or not tidy formations when in a wide column, Asklepiodotus maintains that the open order of 2 yards frontage per file is a natural formation and doesn't have a name. I would like to suggest that when a crowd of people walk cross-country on a broad frontage they instinctively keep about 2 yards between themselves and those around them, in the same way a flock of birds keeps a certain distance between themselves to avoid midair collisions. So the Persians, preserving neither ranks nor files, and sometimes even mixing up their national groupings, advance along a wide avenue with a spacing that permits getting around any obstacles in their way like rocks without slowing their pace.

Of course this needs to be proved. Any examples of crowds on the march in the open?

I've been fell walking (and walking generally) for many years. People do keep between three and six feet apart, and they tend to spread out into a two or three people wide irregular column as they follow the leader down the easiest line of advance. If it's a path, they'll stick to the path and walk at the width of the path, because if you try and walk next to the person on the path, the person on the path naturally walks much faster than the person on the ground next to the path.