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

[Patrick Waterson]

A slight digression in the direction of period grain storage possibilities: Leviticus 25 is interesting.  The chapter deals with the provision for leaving the whole land fallow every seven years.  To do this, a certain amount of productive and preservative activity is required.

Leviticus 25:20-22:
20. And if ye shall say, what shall we eat in the seventh year?
Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase.
21. Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year,
and it shall bring forth fruit* for three years.
22. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of old fruit* until the ninth year;
until her fruits* come in ye shall eat of the old [store].

*Not literally 'fruit' but the fruits of the land, i.e. grain.

This was enshrined in Hebrew law.  To make it work, there had to be some provision for tripling crops in the sixth year (how on Earth would they have done that?) and the crops harvested in Year 6 of the cycle would have to last through Years 7 and 8.

It seems unlikely this statute would have survived if it had been totally impracticable.  Even if the sixth year tripling was replaced by accrual over the six years, the sixth year crop still has to last for years 7 and 8.

Intriguing.  Unless the Hebrews had special knowledge they did not share with anyone, it implies that keeping grain usable over time was easier back then than it is now with our monoculture crops.

I think maybe you are too focussed on Monte Testaccio, which is, as far as I know, unique.  What you would be looking for is a pot scatter containing amphora fragments.  In a depot handling thousands of amphorae you'd be breaking some.  The fragments of these would be dumped somewhere or just left where they fell.  I seriously doubt the Persian forces on campaign, passing from site to site daily, would be collecting up fragments to use as ostraca.  Also, the most diagnostic bits - rims and handles - don't make good ostraca.  They are also big and chunky and endure in archaeological contexts.  Honestly, if a site is using amphorae in the ancient world, they will turn up.  If they are handling lots, lots will turn up.

But would there be such an accumulation if they are being handled for only a day or a few days at any given site, as we would expect with an army on the move being periodically resupplied by sea?  Or are we thinking of the collection and storage areas back in Asia Minor?

Breakages on campaign would occur on the beaches (which are no longer beaches) and the bits would be scavenged for ostraca, thrown into the sea or simply left there.  The temporary stops along the route where resupply occurred are unlikely to have accrued noticeable amounts of fragments of amphorae.  They should have accrued some, but not enough for the casual visitor to find himself stumbling over a heap of bits of rims and handles.  Also, have they been looked for?  Has anyone followed the then-coastal track looking for fragments of grain storage amphorae?  I think probably not: even Peter Connolly, who pioneered the 'sharding' technique, used it to find settlements, not follow supply routes.

[Jim Webster]

A slight digression in the direction of period grain storage possibilities: Leviticus 25 is interesting.  The chapter deals with the provision for leaving the whole land fallow every seven years.  To do this, a certain amount of productive and preservative activity is required.

Leviticus 25:20-22:
20. And if ye shall say, what shall we eat in the seventh year?
Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase.
21. Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year,
and it shall bring forth fruit* for three years.
22. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of old fruit* until the ninth year;
until her fruits* come in ye shall eat of the old [store].

*Not literally 'fruit' but the fruits of the land, i.e. grain.

This was enshrined in Hebrew law.  To make it work, there had to be some provision for tripling crops in the sixth year (how on Earth would they have done that?) and the crops harvested in Year 6 of the cycle would have to last through Years 7 and 8.

It seems unlikely this statute would have survived if it had been totally impracticable.  Even if the sixth year tripling was replaced by accrual over the six years, the sixth year crop still has to last for years 7 and 8.

Not really difficult. I explained to you in post 65 on April 13th how it was done

[Jim Webster]

I think maybe you are too focussed on Monte Testaccio, which is, as far as I know, unique.  What you would be looking for is a pot scatter containing amphora fragments.  In a depot handling thousands of amphorae you'd be breaking some.  The fragments of these would be dumped somewhere or just left where they fell.  I seriously doubt the Persian forces on campaign, passing from site to site daily, would be collecting up fragments to use as ostraca.  Also, the most diagnostic bits - rims and handles - don't make good ostraca.  They are also big and chunky and endure in archaeological contexts.  Honestly, if a site is using amphorae in the ancient world, they will turn up.  If they are handling lots, lots will turn up.

But would there be such an accumulation if they are being handled for only a day or a few days at any given site, as we would expect with an army on the move being periodically resupplied by sea?  Or are we thinking of the collection and storage areas back in Asia Minor?

Breakages on campaign would occur on the beaches (which are no longer beaches) and the bits would be scavenged for ostraca, thrown into the sea or simply left there.  The temporary stops along the route where resupply occurred are unlikely to have accrued noticeable amounts of fragments of amphorae.  They should have accrued some, but not enough for the casual visitor to find himself stumbling over a heap of bits of rims and handles.  Also, have they been looked for?  Has anyone followed the then-coastal track looking for fragments of grain storage amphorae?  I think probably not: even Peter Connolly, who pioneered the 'sharding' technique, used it to find settlements, not follow supply routes.

you are now ignoring totally the fact that Herodotus mentions depots, or were they deep cleaned by the Persian army as it fled starving back to Asia?

[Flaminpig0]

I think, is that we must endeavour to recognise our cultural biases and seek to minimise their impact.

Would that be an approach that Herodtus would recognise I wonder?

Yes.  Herodotus travelled extensively during his research and spoke to many people from various different cultures.  He did retain much of his Greek perspective, not least because he was a Greek writing for a Greek audience, but did not assume that Greek techniques were the answer to everything or that everyone had to operate using Greek systems.

Not sure that  is quite the same as being aware of 'cultural bias'  and actively seeking to minimise its impact  - one could argue that depicting the slave owning Athenians or even Spartans as free societies  as opposed to the unfree barbarian Persians shows a certain level of cultural based selective thinking. From a C21 perspective of course.

This looks  to be an interesting article
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/pdfs/persians_just_non_greek.pdf

I quite like the idea that the Persians have feeble heads due to turban wearing.

[Imperial Dave]

Very thought provoking article. I can see why it might rile a few people

[Patrick Waterson]

It seems unlikely this statute would have survived if it had been totally impracticable.  Even if the sixth year tripling was replaced by accrual over the six years, the sixth year crop still has to last for years 7 and 8.

Not really difficult. I explained to you in post 65 on April 13th how it was done

True, you did.   It was the statutory tripling of the Year 6 crop which surprised me, and the routine two-year preservation of the said crop which I found interesting.

you are now ignoring totally the fact that Herodotus mentions depots, or were they deep cleaned by the Persian army as it fled starving back to Asia?

I would imagine so, given the description in Herodotus VIII.115:

"So the herald took that response and departed, but Xerxes left Mardonius in Thessaly. He himself journeyed with all speed to the Hellespont and came in forty-five days to the passage for crossing, bringing back with him as good as none (if one may say so) of his host. [2] Wherever and to whatever people they came, they seized and devoured its produce. If they found none, they would eat the grass of the field and strip the bark and pluck the leaves of the trees, garden and wild alike, leaving nothing—such was the degree of their starvation. [3] Moreover, pestilence and dysentery broke out among them on their way, from which they died. Some who were sick Xerxes left behind, charging the cities to which he came in his march to care for them and nourish them, some in Thessaly and some in Siris of Paeonia and in Macedonia."

If trees are being stripped of leaves, any depots are going to be thoroughly cleaned out.  This does not mean the starving Persians devoured amphorae; rather I would have thought that when the ships unloaded onto the beaches (and into the occasional coastal cities) the grain would have been transferred into sacks for easier and more efficient transportation.  Any depots on land might thus have acres of discarded (but biodegradable) sacks but probably no bits of amphorae.

[Patrick Waterson]

This looks  to be an interesting article
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/pdfs/persians_just_non_greek.pdf

Yes, the author  correctly points out that in Greek 'barbaroi' simply means people who do not speak Greek.  Up to Herodotus' time, this was simply a fact and not a value judgement.  After Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, Mycale and Eurymedon, the Greeks in general and Athenians in particular were conscious of their superior military merit and appear to have associated it with their own culture.  This resulted in Persians being less highly regarded (see the King's Eye 'Pseudo-Artabas' in Aristophanes' The Acharnians.)

Intriguingly, The Acharnians has the first hint of Persians using gold to influence events in Greece, a tendency which would take root in the Peloponnesian War and be a centrepiece of Persian policy afterwards.  As Greece slipped further into internecine strife through Persian support for underdogs to topple the hegemon (top dog), so attitudes began to emerge calling for Greece to overthrow Persia once and for all, as exemplified by Ismenias of Thebes.

I quite like the idea that the Persians have feeble heads due to turban wearing.

From Herodotus III.12, contrasting the effects, or assumed effects, of the Egyptian custom of going shaven-headed and hatless with the Persian custom of wearing turbans.  Explanations in this period would not have involved theories based on genetics.

[Flaminpig0]

Explanations in this period would not have involved theories based on genetics.

On that I think we can probably all agree.

[Justin Swanton]

you are now ignoring totally the fact that Herodotus mentions depots, or were they deep cleaned by the Persian army as it fled starving back to Asia?

OK, let me return to amphorae (last time, promise...)

The food depots sites can be justly compared with imperial Rome. We know that far more wine amphorae were shipped to Rome than olive oil amphorae, but there is no significant trace of these wine amphorae left anywhere, just shards here and there that might have been used for wine or for something else.

Now visualise a food depot. All these depots were set up at port towns of significant size along the Aegean coast. They would consist of temporary structures in which were bins for more recent grain and sealed amphorae for older harvests. The army arrives and all the grain is transferred from the bins/amphorae to sacks on the baggage mules. You now have a lot of empty amphorae of which a small percentage are broken (I'm going to assume that the workers who handled the amphorae took care not to break them when handling them - I work in a print shop where there are a thousand ways to get a job wrong and one way to get it right and getting a job wrong is a big deal, so it's a fair assumption).

What happens to the empty amphorae? They are perfectly reusable and so the local inhabitants reuse them. I suggest that the primary use would have been to export various food products of that port via ship to its clients around the Aegean and beyond. If the amphorae had been sealed with resin to keep the grain dry, they are perfect for wine as well as cereals. The amphorae could also have been taken in by the locals for domestic use. After a while they are all gone, with some shards left on the depot site which were partly used by the local Greeks and partly buried by time.

[Jim Webster]

you are now ignoring totally the fact that Herodotus mentions depots, or were they deep cleaned by the Persian army as it fled starving back to Asia?

OK, let me return to amphorae (last time, promise...)

The food depots sites can be justly compared with imperial Rome. We know that far more wine amphorae were shipped to Rome than olive oil amphorae, but there is no significant trace of these wine amphorae left anywhere, just shards here and there that might have been used for wine or for something else.

Now visualise a food depot. All these depots were set up at port towns of significant size along the Aegean coast. They would consist of temporary structures in which were bins for more recent grain and sealed amphorae for older harvests.

seriously no, grain has to be stored in very weather proof bins
And nobody has produced evidence of grain stored in Amphorae

[Erpingham]

Justin, please just read up on some amphora studies and think it through a bit.  Yes, it's dull but it will stop some of the wilder speculation.  Amphorae don't disappear - they are durable and lie around in bits on archaeological sites in quantity.  Different commodoties used different types of amphorae - they often had a helpful label telling you what was in them and how much it weighed.  There is little evidence of using amphorae for mass transport of grain (I haven't found any yet but I refuse to look at any more amphora articles) - grain amphorae are mentioned only in passing to allow you to get onto the exciting (?) stuff like typologies of fish sauce containers.

[Flaminpig0]

Is there any archaeological evidence for the several million man army?

[Duncan Head]

Is there any archaeological evidence for the several million man army?

I remember one claim that the Galatian invasion of Greece left no archaeological trace at all. There's an interesting discussion here of the physical remains of the Persian invasion, which in passing says much the same about the Galatian invasion of Asia. So I am not sure if the absence of material traces pointing to the validity of the Persian "three million" counts for very much.

[Jim Webster]

Is there any archaeological evidence for the several million man army?

They folded their tents, like the Arabs,
      And as silently steal away.



We have an Empire with an estimated population of 50 million
(So 25 million of them male and perhaps 17 million of them of working/military age)
And you take six million of them on a jaunt outside the empire, as well as employing 300,000 as extra labourers in Egypt, I forget how many thousand as amphorae manufacturers, we have men building ships, crewing extra merchant ships, we have untold thousands already on site, clearing roads and digging canals. If we call this another million, that gives us 7 million

In WW2 the Americans had 9% (approximately) of their population in the military. Germany hit 31% in some form of service, but that may include men who did their day job and served as firewatchers at night

Xerxes took 14% of his population, when the vast majority of them were involved in subsistence agriculture. He removed from the economy about 40% of men of working age.
Agriculture would have collapsed and you'd have had massed starvation in home provinces. Who was sowing the crop in Babylonia that was to be harvested whilst xerxes and his lads were in Northern Greece? Who was there left to harvest it?

[Erpingham]

Is there any archaeological evidence for the several million man army?

I remember one claim that the Galatian invasion of Greece left no archaeological trace at all. There's an interesting discussion here of the physical remains of the Persian invasion, which in passing says much the same about the Galatian invasion of Asia. So I am not sure if the absence of material traces pointing to the validity of the Persian "three million" counts for very much.

As the old saying taught to generations of archaeology students goes "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

The problem we have in assessing this case is none of is is expert enough in the archaeology of Northern Greece to know what level of archaeological fieldwork has been done looking at things like pot scatters, whether any landscape work has been done on potential traces of campsites and so on.  So we can't even say with certainty there is an absence of evidence.  The five depots should have left the most trace - they were quite large and occupied for several years but has anyone looked?

The evidence on Asian shore for the giant magazine, stone built, enclosed with stone walls and apparently stocked at their peak with millions of amphorae, should be the easiest of all to locate.  We ought to see some record tablets relating to the expedition somewhere in the Persian Empire but finding these caches seems hit and miss, so we may not have discovered them yet.

So, I don't think the absence of evidence is a deal breaker.