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

[Erpingham]

We need to keep to the rules and go with Maurice. He's the authority.

If you say so.  I don't remember making maurice a sole authority at any point.

That makes the camp of our 350 000 men 21 875 hectares in size or 218, 75 km². The camp now measures 14.8 x 14.8 km. Still a good hike to the water source.

Why do you talk of a single camp?  Surely, he talked of a number of formations spread across a concentration area?  So, you'd place the on different roads to avoid clogging the roads to the supply point.  You'd put each one near a water source, far enough from any sources of contamination from other camps, preferably completely different sources.  You'd work round existing settlements, areas of woodland etc.  To help visualise, here's a map of Etaples staging camp, home to 100,000 men.  It is a permanent camp but there you go





I think before being too dismissive about Maurice, perhaps you should try to understand him on context?

[Justin Swanton]

We need to keep to the rules and go with Maurice. He's the authority.

If you say so.  I don't remember making maurice a sole authority at any point.

That makes the camp of our 350 000 men 21 875 hectares in size or 218, 75 km². The camp now measures 14.8 x 14.8 km. Still a good hike to the water source.

Why do you talk of a single camp?  Surely, he talked of a number of formations spread across a concentration area?  So, you'd place the on different roads to avoid clogging the roads to the supply point.  You'd put each one near a water source, far enough from any sources of contamination from other camps, preferably completely different sources.  You'd work round existing settlements, areas of woodland etc.  To help visualise, here's a map of Etaples staging camp, home to 100,000 men.  It is a permanent camp but there you go





I think before being too dismissive about Maurice, perhaps you should try to understand him on context?

Interesting. Putting a scale on the map (with the help of Google maps) gives the total camp area the approximate dimensions of 3.6 x 2 km = 7,2 km²

Following Maurice's yardstick for 100 000 men, at 16 men per hectare that should be 62.5 km².

I'm afraid I'm going to remain a skeptic.

[Erpingham]

I'm afraid I'm going to remain a skeptic.

It is, of course, your privilege   But at least I hope you have a less distorted view of the WWI British army, even if I can't help with the Persian one.

[Justin Swanton]

The size of the army according to many scholars ranges from about 200 000 to 500 000.

Though not all scholars would favour such high numbers: Delbrueck went as low as 25,000 at one point, apparently. One Professor Livio Catullo Stecchini has an interesting brief summary of the historiography of Xerxes' numbers.

Taking a low figure of 25 000 men does solve all the logistical problems but replaces them with other problems, among them the ability to conquer Greece.

Let's assume the army was between 30 000 and 50 000 men. A nice practical size, enabling the army to march from one campsite to another in a single day without having to do it cross-country or split up into separate corps. Also numerous enough to impress the Greeks who themselves usually fielded only a few thousand men for a battle.

The problem then is Herodotus. If the army is 50 000 strong, his account of the boat bridge over the Hellespont is clearly a fabrication, as no sensible general in command of an army that size would undertake such a risky venture. He would simply do what every other general with a comparable army did: ferry the men across by ship.

The food dumps are evidently another fabrication. 50 000 men need 50 tons of grain a day, which can be comfortably managed by two smallish cargo vessels, forming part of a conveyor belt system of 20 ships that would have no trouble keeping the army fed from the Hellespont to Greece.

The Thasian incident is another fabrication unless one accept that virtually all the 400 talents were spent to regale Xerxes and his officers in a style that matched or exceeded his birthday bashes at Persepolis.

At the end of it, practically the only thing we be sure of from reading Herodotus is that a Persian army marched to Greece and was beaten there (can we be sure even of that?  )

[Patrick Waterson]

Also have you a clue what the annual calving of a herd or lambing of a flock is like. It's every bit as labour intensive as harvest

With modern species, yes.  Do you know how dependent upon human help the species of the period were?

yes
It's pretty standard stuff,

Jim, did this get posted incomplete?  I shall hold off any response until you have had your say.

So, you see no impediment to a smaller but still very large force other than it involves assuming that Herodotus got his figures wrong?

Actually there are several impediments, beginning with the fact that Herodotus is not alone.  If he had managed to get his figures wrong, we can be pretty sure that Thucydides, who delighted in proving Herodotus wrong on small points of detail, would have dropped some very heavy hints about the matter.

So we have consistency (at least in terms of Xerxes' army being really large) among our original sources.  They would not all have been hypnotised by Herodotus' account because quite a few classical historians delighted in disparaging Herodotus for one reason or another.

As to rejecting Herodotus' figures and those of the swarming multitudes of the barbarians, surely that is why we are here?

That sounds a bit a priori: we are here to give him a fair trial - and then hang him!

Conventional history states that the figures for " the other" are consistently over estimated.  That Herodotus, having been told some tales about the size of the Persian army, believes them, because culturally he is conditioned to think of vast barbarian hordes.  I don't think he fabricated his figures - I think he accepted some figures he was fed, because they fitted his pre-conceptions, then worked out from there, filling in gaps in a consistent manner. In this latter position, I confess I diverge from a lot of historians who do think he just made the numbers up.

Although if he did this, we get the questions 1) why would he have any such preconceptions int he first place, 2) who fed him these numbers, and why would he believe them?* and 3) how is it that he still has minor inconsistencies in his arithmetic?  If he were 'filling gaps in a consistent manner', why the inconsistencies (notably with regard to the number of smaller ships and auxiliary vessels)?

*From his account, it is evident he had testimony from several highly-placed individuals, including Persians. One may recall that Persians were taught to do three things from boyhood: ride a horse, shoot a bow and tell the truth.

Later writers produce figures which are consistent because they are from the same cultural outlook.

But some writers from the same cultural outlook, notably Thucydides and Plutarch, get their knives into Herodotus at every opportunity.  Furthermore, a cultural outlook which compulsively over-estimates and/or overstates enemy numbers is not going to fare as well as did the Greeks in combat against the Persian Empire.

We might also turn this argument on its head and say: our own culture produces writers who consistently under-estimate and under-state figures from the Biblical and classical periods.  I think we are on much firmer ground with this assertion.

[Jim Webster]

It's a fair assumption that it can't generally march more than about 4 men abreast.

sorry but where did the four men abreast come from?

[Jim Webster]

The size of the army according to many scholars ranges from about 200 000 to 500 000.

Though not all scholars would favour such high numbers: Delbrueck went as low as 25,000 at one point, apparently. One Professor Livio Catullo Stecchini has an interesting brief summary of the historiography of Xerxes' numbers.

Taking a low figure of 25 000 men does solve all the logistical problems but replaces them with other problems, among them the ability to conquer Greece.

why?
If it's a professional army, properly trained with decent cavalry, it has the advantage that it will pick up allies, Macedonia and Thrace could provide decent auxiliary forces. Then there may well have been the promise of aid from Thessaly and perhaps even Thebes

Looked at from the Persian point of view, if you can get Thebes, they can pretty much neutralise the Athenians, so you're left with the Spartans and the various minor states. Only the Spartans are proper soldiers, the rest are city militia, undrilled and with little formal training.

I suspect that 25,000 is on the low side, but 25,000 quality infantry and 5000 good cavalry and some local auxilia I suspect most Persian generals would have fancied their chances

[Jim Webster]

Also have you a clue what the annual calving of a herd or lambing of a flock is like. It's every bit as labour intensive as harvest

With modern species, yes.  Do you know how dependent upon human help the species of the period were?

yes
It's pretty standard stuff,

Jim, did this get posted incomplete?  I shall hold off any response until you have had your say.

no, it's complete, the ancient breeds still exist in many areas, largely unchanged. We know that from skeletal analysis and the ancient writers

[Jim Webster]

Actually there are several impediments, beginning with the fact that Herodotus is not alone.  If he had managed to get his figures wrong, we can be pretty sure that Thucydides, who delighted in proving Herodotus wrong on small points of detail, would have dropped some very heavy hints about the matter.

why would any Greek bother contradicting him? This was now their story.

[Jim Webster]

  One may recall that Persians were taught to do three things from boyhood: ride a horse, shoot a bow and tell the truth.[/i]

Alas that our history was written by a Greek, had a Persian written it we might have got the correct numbers 

[Flaminpig0]

We might also turn this argument on its head and say: our own culture produces writers who consistently under-estimate and under-state figures from the Biblical and classical periods. 

Can you give examples of this?

[Patrick Waterson]

Actually there are several impediments, beginning with the fact that Herodotus is not alone.  If he had managed to get his figures wrong, we can be pretty sure that Thucydides, who delighted in proving Herodotus wrong on small points of detail, would have dropped some very heavy hints about the matter.

why would any Greek bother contradicting him? This was now their story.

But was it?  Herodotus recorded it ''in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory," which suggests it was not 'their story' but rather one whose details needed to be set down before memories faded or were lost.  And some Greeks were happy to contradict Herodotus in other matters purely to show what a bad historian he was (or rather, how good they were by comparison). They would not have missed an opportunity to trip him up over this.

We might also turn this argument on its head and say: our own culture produces writers who consistently under-estimate and under-state figures from the Biblical and classical periods. 

Can you give examples of this?

Practically every book or article written about every battle involving forces of more than 20,000 men per side.  Two egregious examples are Delbruck on Alexander's battles against the the Achaemenids and Robin Lane Fox following him.  Even Cannae is not immune, as can be seen in the Wikipedia entry.

"However, some have suggested that the destruction of an army of 90,000 troops would be impossible. They argue that Rome probably had 48,000 troops and 6,000 cavalry against Hannibal's 35,000 troops and 10,000 cavalry." - the reference cited is the Cambridge Ancient History volume VIII of 1965.

It is a pervasive disease, and not one which contributes to understanding.

[Justin Swanton]

It's a fair assumption that it can't generally march more than about 4 men abreast.

sorry but where did the four men abreast come from?

Width of a cart. Many tracks would probably be narrower than this, obliging the army (presuming it keeps to the track) to march 2 abreast.

[Patrick Waterson]

On the logistical front, an interesting observation by Dr Brian Dobson on p.199 of Warfare in the Ancient World (ed. General Sir John Hackett):

"Polybius gives rations which work out to 1.6 kg per horse, and a papyrus from Oxyrhyncus attests to a similar weight in the 6th century. English cavalry horses, at an average height of 15 1/2 hands, and therefore much heavier than Roman, at about 14 1/2 - 15, received 5.4 to 6.3 kg of oats or equivalent (e.g. barley)a day, with about 5.4 kg of hay and some greenstuff when available. The protein content of grains in the ancient world was much higher than it is today."

This would transform logistical calculations involving mounted troops.  It also means that a diet of bread for the soldiery was more balanced than we would suspect.  These are good reasons to support a general principle of not retroimposing 20th century figures onto the 5th century BC.

[Jim Webster]

Actually there are several impediments, beginning with the fact that Herodotus is not alone.  If he had managed to get his figures wrong, we can be pretty sure that Thucydides, who delighted in proving Herodotus wrong on small points of detail, would have dropped some very heavy hints about the matter.

why would any Greek bother contradicting him? This was now their story.

But was it?  Herodotus recorded it ''in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory,"

Of course it is, if it wasn't he wouldn't have bothered. Pretty much the same as Livy