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

[Dangun]

what irritates me about the whole debate is that it would be much more useful if we could find out where Herodotus got his figures from, what sort of figures the Persian Empire kept etc

For that we need to find archives.  And we probably need to find them in Iran.

I don't think Herodotus refers to such things? Do we know they existed?

We can't expect Herodotus use of sources to be rigorous.

[Duncan Head]

I have owned a Persian wargames army for years but sadly and a little embarrassingly know very little about their culture and society.  Are they semi-feudal ?  I assume they are not a totalitarian ' hydraulic' civilisation like the Sumerians or Egyptians.

Things like the Persepolis Fortification and Treasury archives suggest that they had a developed bureaucracy very much on Mesopotamian lines. The use of Elamite, particularly, indicates that the homeland of Persis/Parsa itself was at least partially a Near Eastern bureaucratic society. But this administration was in the service of an Iranian warrior aristocracy, and it is not entirely clear (to me, at least) how far into the hinterlands of the Empire the bureaucratic habit penetrated.

[Dangun]

Things like the Persepolis Fortification and Treasury archives suggest that they had a developed bureaucracy very much on Mesopotamian lines. The use of Elamite, particularly, indicates that the homeland of Persis/Parsa itself was at least partially a Near Eastern bureaucratic society. But this administration was in the service of an Iranian warrior aristocracy, and it is not entirely clear (to me, at least) how far into the hinterlands of the Empire the bureaucratic habit penetrated.

Bureaucracies take a special interest in maintaining tax records.

Collecting interesting historical snippets and then making them publicly available for would-be Greek historians to spend a leisurely afternoon browsing, probably less so.

[Erpingham]

From the archives we do have (see http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/persepolis-admin-archive for example), unfortunately, it would be hard to prove that the Achaemenids even had an army...

I rather like that Iranica Online - I've referred to quite a bit of their stuff during this debate.  What this does show us is the level of bureacracy denotes a sophisticated administrative system, as we would expect from an empire drawing a great deal from the great Mesopotamian civilisations.  To me, it shows we can safely say that the Persians could build up a major military effort and supply it as well as any of the ancient empires.  There is nothing to suggest they were particularly less competent in this respect.  But then, it doesn't seem to prove they were the most competent administration until modern times either, unless there is other compelling evidence?

[Duncan Head]

Bureaucracies take a special interest in maintaining tax records.

Collecting interesting historical snippets and then making them publicly available for would-be Greek historians to spend a leisurely afternoon browsing, probably less so.

It seems to me quite plausible - though probably unprovable - that:

- Achaemenid administrators produced some form of documentation summarising the composition of the expeditionary army of 480.
- That some copies of that documentation would have been present in Europe or Western Anatolia with the army.
- That one or more of those copies might have fallen into Greek hands, for instance at the capture of Mardonios' camp after Plataia or the capture of Sestos or of some other previously-Persian garrison.
- That the Greeks could find someone who could read Achaemenid administrative Aramaic.

I don't find it implausible, therefore, that Herodotos could have had genuine sources for his contingent-list of the army and for the logistic arrangements. Other stuff maybe less so, depending what "interesting historical snippets" you had in mind.

[Justin Swanton]

Convince me Aaron! Just one little irrefutable fact....

I don't believe it would be possible to reliably deliver the posited daily requirement of 3000+ tons of shipped grain supplies.

See here, regarding traffic through Ostia in Imperial times, which was of course a special case:

http://www.ostia-antica.org/med/med.htm#52

"Generally speaking the unloading of a ship of 150 tons will have taken two to four days. A cargo of 250 tons required six to eight days. Certain cargoes required special loading and unloading facilities. Sacks of grain and lighter amphorae could be carried by dockhands. Heavier amphorae were carried by two men, using poles slipped through the handles. Mobile cranes were used for lifting heavy objects such as marble sarcophagi and wild animals in cages. For the unloading of an obelisk, weighing many tons, exceptionally strong cranes must have been built."

If you are transporting via amphora as posited (say 39l capacity each @ 30kgs a pop (not including tare)), you need to be loading 100,000 and transporting, delivering and unloading another 100,000 of them daily.

And you are still having to get another 1700 tons from land sources as well.

It would be a massive operation. I don't think you are taking that properly into account.

Fine Aaron. Let's work with this.

If the 50-ton capacity ships used amphorae then they were carrying 25 tons of grain. For 3000 tons you need 120 ships. If a 150 ton Roman ship unloads on average in 3 days then a 50-tonner unloads on average in one day. So the 120 ships must all unload together on the same day. Each ship is about 30 metres long. End-to-end they measure 3600 metres. Given them some clearance and make it 50 metres per ship (the ships needn't be aligned end-to-end but anyway) and you require 6000 metres or 6km or 4 miles of usuable beach. it doesn't have to be continuous beach, just close enough to the campsite.

If the 50-ton capacity ships store grain in sacks then you will require about half the length of beach - 3km or 2 miles - to unload 3000 tons a day (I prefer sacks).

Personally I think the Persians would have unloaded the ships much more quickly since there were any number of available hands and speed was of the essence. I also think the ships could have crowded closer together without colliding against each other.

The question now is whether there is enough usable beach along the northern and western Aegean coastline. Proving there isn't will kill the idea of a huge army as effectively as genuine chokepoints that can't be passed on either side by the infantry.

PS: just did a Google Maps tour of the coastline. It seems to be mostly beach though of course that isn't necessarily an accurate representation of the situation in 480 BC.

[Erpingham]

I think we should be looking more at this sort of process than lightering.  Though in our case, I'd envisage chains of men shifting stuff up the beach to load on animal transport (because we don't seem to allow any wagons, presumably due to terrain, rather than technology not available).  The level of swell in this picture would be pretty marginal for offloading to human chains though.  Incidentally, this also shows how you beach - bow on.  Our ancient mariners could then potentially offload on both sides.

[Justin Swanton]

I think we should be looking more at this sort of process than lightering.  Though in our case, I'd envisage chains of men shifting stuff up the beach to load on animal transport (because we don't seem to allow any wagons, presumably due to terrain, rather than technology not available).  The level of swell in this picture would be pretty marginal for offloading to human chains though.  Incidentally, this also shows how you beach - bow on.  Our ancient mariners could then potentially offload on both sides.

Fascinating, Anthony. 

[Duncan Head]

Ancient (Roman) depiction of grain transported by sea - being brought on board in sacks and poured into some sort of larger container.

[Flaminpig0]

For the Humongous Herodotusian Army Hypothesis (HHAH) to be even slightly plausible I think we need to demonstrate the following.
1.   An extensive empire wide bureaucracy and police/security service with  the authority and ability to enforce policy compliance on any recalcitrant nobles/tribal leaders
2.   A huge regular logistics corps able to set up large and effective supply dumps able to store food stuffs for years at a time. Oh, and ensure quality compliance.
3.   An extensive mapping service able to provide planned routes across country for multiple columns of men which also ensures they can reach the above.
4.   A sort of Persian Ofsted capable of monitoring the extensive apprentice scheme needed  to produce a large number of effective sailors and ships captains. The service would need to be multilingual  to deal effectively with locals who don't or claim they cant speak Persian.

[Dangun]

It seems to me quite plausible - though probably unprovable - that:

Yes, possible. Certainly unprovable. (Unless someone who new the Histories better than me could point to a reference in the text. But the set of all possible explanations is very, very large.

But Herodotus does a lot of quoting anecdotes or stories, "learned men say," and so recycling fiction is another possibility.
I would prefer it not to be, since its a solitary source for so much stuff, but...?

[Erpingham]

In an idle moment, I thought I'd maintain the flow of new information by looking up the weather in the Aegean in summer

This website for yachtsmen is quite interesting.  The Meltimi or Etesian winds make for a more unpredictable sea state than has been suggested before and would be something to be factored into any cross-Aegean nautical conveyor belt.

[Andreas Johansson]

It seems to me quite plausible - though probably unprovable - that:

Yes, possible. Certainly unprovable. (Unless someone who new the Histories better than me could point to a reference in the text. But the set of all possible explanations is very, very large.

But Herodotus does a lot of quoting anecdotes or stories, "learned men say," and so recycling fiction is another possibility.
I would prefer it not to be, since its a solitary source for so much stuff, but...?

A question that occurred to me: assuming a OOB ended up in Greek hands along Duncan's suggestion, how likely is it that Herodotus would have used it? He stands more-or-less at the start of Greek historiography - presumably nobody in 479 would have thought to keep the document for the future benefit of a profession not yet invented. And if it were kept in some archive somewhere, would Herodotus have gone looking for it? His basic MO were autopsy and interview, not archival studies, right?

[Duncan Head]

A question that occurred to me: assuming a OOB ended up in Greek hands along Duncan's suggestion, how likely is it that Herodotus would have used it? He stands more-or-less at the start of Greek historiography - presumably nobody in 479 would have thought to keep the document for the future benefit of a profession not yet invented. And if it were kept in some archive somewhere, would Herodotus have gone looking for it? His basic MO were autopsy and interview, not archival studies, right?

He did use the work of earlier historians - at least, he quotes what "Hecataeus the son of Hegesandrus declares in his history".  (It's commonly suggested that he got his list of Achaemenid satrapies and their revenues from Hecataeus, but he doesn't actually say so.)  So he was not averse to using written sources. But given that we have no knowledge that he read Aramaic, his source would presumably have to have been interview of someone who could.

[Justin Swanton]

It seems to me quite plausible - though probably unprovable - that:

Yes, possible. Certainly unprovable. (Unless someone who new the Histories better than me could point to a reference in the text. But the set of all possible explanations is very, very large.

But Herodotus does a lot of quoting anecdotes or stories, "learned men say," and so recycling fiction is another possibility.
I would prefer it not to be, since its a solitary source for so much stuff, but...?

A question that occurred to me: assuming a OOB ended up in Greek hands along Duncan's suggestion, how likely is it that Herodotus would have used it? He stands more-or-less at the start of Greek historiography - presumably nobody in 479 would have thought to keep the document for the future benefit of a profession not yet invented. And if it were kept in some archive somewhere, would Herodotus have gone looking for it? His basic MO were autopsy and interview, not archival studies, right?

At the beginning of his Histories Herodotus mentions 'Persians best informed in history', 'Persian learned men' - λόγιοι having the sense of a) versed in tales or stories; b) learned, erudite (most common usage); or c) skilled in words, eloquent.

b) fits the context here. This implies writing. If Herodotus had access to Persian historical accounts the natural conclusion is that he would have looked for written records of Xerxes' campaign. He was a Persian subject and the fact that he was able to travel so much indicates his family were well off and well-connected. He was related to Panyassis. I think it natural he would have been able to lay his hands on what he was looking for.