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

[Jim Webster]

Then Xerxes orders that a foraging corps be organised that collects the grass/brush at each site. it must be done so it is done.

Any historical evidence that the Persian army ever had this?
An army with virtually no regular troops suddenly invents the regular commissariat.

[Jim Webster]

I dispute Gallipoli. I mapped out a route that allows for a wide column to move up the peninsula. Shall I post photos?

no, could we have a contour map please, they're far easy to read than photos

Jim

[Flaminpig0]

Rather than thinking of an army leaving camp, marching and entering camp, with the sort of numbers Herodotus was talking, it makes more sense to consider the army as a camp which is moving because only the lead units will ever camp of ground that hasn't been camped on

Does that not make the army into a giant moving typhoid epidemic waiting to happen?

[Patrick Waterson]

The aim of the thread is to establish (if we can) whether Xerxes could conceivably logistically support the army Herodotus ascribes to him given the means stated, which amount to:

> Four years' advance preparation (Herodotus VII.20)
> 4,007 warships (idem VII.184)
> Unnumbered "corn-barks and other craft accompanying the army" (idem VII.187)
> Local support which fed the army for a day at a time in northern Greece (idem VII.118-120)

Of course it all started to go wrong after Thermopylae, but we only need to get him as far as Thermopylae with this level of support.

[Jim Webster]

This is about 300,000 animals overall.  If the obedient locals through whose lands the army is passing are gathering much of the fodder, as seems reasonable in view of their having fed the Achaemenid army while it passed through, then the army itself is spared much of the drudgery of collection and has only the task of distribution.

just to put this in proportion
All those animals would approximate to 1 livestock unit.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Agricultural_census_in_Greece#Livestock

The current livestock figures for all of modern Greece (2000 AD)
Cattle   463,660
Sheep    875,270
Goats   532,720
equidae   35,490

To get things in proportion, cattle and equidae are probably 1 livestock unit, sheep and goats are 0.15 livestock units each

So merely ordering people to produce fodder for your 300,000 LSU is all well and good, but frankly they couldn't support that many livestock anyway, even if they had none of their own.

To put things in proportion for those who're used to British conditions, in the UK we have over 10 million cattle alone. This is what you can do in decent grass growing country 

[Jim Webster]

Rather than thinking of an army leaving camp, marching and entering camp, with the sort of numbers Herodotus was talking, it makes more sense to consider the army as a camp which is moving because only the lead units will ever camp of ground that hasn't been camped on

Does that not make the army into a giant moving typhoid epidemic waiting to happen?

I remember mentioning this aspect of the issue some pages ago, but lacked your rather elegant turn of phrase which slices directly to the nub of the issue   

[Patrick Waterson]

Rather than thinking of an army leaving camp, marching and entering camp, with the sort of numbers Herodotus was talking, it makes more sense to consider the army as a camp which is moving because only the lead units will ever camp of ground that hasn't been camped on

Does that not make the army into a giant moving typhoid epidemic waiting to happen?

Funny you should say that, given what happened after Salamis.  See 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. 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. 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."

[Jim Webster]

The aim of the thread is to establish (if we can) whether Xerxes could conceivably logistically support the army Herodotus ascribes to him given the means stated, which amount to:

> Four years' advance preparation (Herodotus VII.20)
> 4,007 warships (idem VII.184)
> Unnumbered "corn-barks and other craft accompanying the army" (idem VII.187)
> Local support which fed the army for a day at a time in northern Greece (idem VII.118-120)

Of course it all started to go wrong after Thermopylae, but we only need to get him as far as Thermopylae with this level of support.

plus a route wide enough for men to march 300 abreast
A regular commissariat which has thousands of fodder gathers in it
thousands of 'longshore men' unloading these corn-barks over open beaches.
An expansion of the amphora making industry to produce all these extra amphora which are used to carry the corn. Plus a sweep-up team to dispose of broken amphorae off the beaches when the inevitable accidents happened
Local support which actually imported fodder from the north because Greece didn't produce that much for its own livestock
Grain storage technology superior to what we have because nobody in their right mind stores wheat for four years

[Patrick Waterson]

So merely ordering people to produce fodder for your 300,000 LSU is all well and good, but frankly they couldn't support that many livestock anyway, even if they had none of their own.

But how good a guide to ancient Greece (and Thrace) is modern Greece?  Sicily used to be considered a granary of the Mediterranean and wonderfully fertile, ditto Cyrenaica - and look at them today.

[Flaminpig0]

Then Xerxes orders that a foraging corps be organised that collects the grass/brush at each site. it must be done so it is done.

Any historical evidence that the Persian army ever had this?
An army with virtually no regular troops suddenly invents the regular commissariat.

I think this was touched on in the debate 3 days back; to make the army at all plausible one has to invent a whole group of supporting arms more like one would find post C17th. Or at the very least not something that a semi-feudal society could be reasonably expected to have.

[Flaminpig0]

The aim of the thread is to establish (if we can) whether Xerxes could conceivably logistically support the army Herodotus ascribes to him given the means stated, which amount to:

> Four years' advance preparation (Herodotus VII.20)
> 4,007 warships (idem VII.184)
> Unnumbered "corn-barks and other craft accompanying the army" (idem VII.187)
> Local support which fed the army for a day at a time in northern Greece (idem VII.118-120)

Of course it all started to go wrong after Thermopylae, but we only need to get him as far as Thermopylae with this level of support.

plus a route wide enough for men to march 300 abreast
A regular commissariat which has thousands of fodder gathers in it
thousands of 'longshore men' unloading these corn-barks over open beaches.
An expansion of the amphora making industry to produce all these extra amphora which are used to carry the corn. Plus a sweep-up team to dispose of broken amphorae off the beaches when the inevitable accidents happened
Local support which actually imported fodder from the north because Greece didn't produce that much for its own livestock
Grain storage technology superior to what we have because nobody in their right mind stores wheat for four years

I would also argue for a large military police style organisation necessary to enforce march discipline. Due to the multi-national nature of the host it would probably need be be multi-lingual

[Patrick Waterson]

I think this was touched on in the debate 3 days back; to make the army at all plausible one has to invent a whole group of supporting arms more like one would find post C17th. Or at the very least not something that a semi-feudal society could be reasonably expected to have.

Please, the Achaemenid Empire was Biblical rather than semi-feudal (whatever that is supposed to mean, but I get the impression of 'disorganised' and 'primitive').  It was heir to a tradition of superprojects (Wonders of the World) and, according to the unanimous testimony of sources, super-armies of a size not again reached until the 20th century.  It was also heir to tradition of organisation that oozed bureaucracy at every pore, kept extensive records and, in the case of the Assyrians, moved whole populations (as did the Achaemenids on occasion, witness the Paeonians).

I would also argue for a large military police style organisation necessary to enforce march discipline. Due to the multi-national nature of the host it would probably need be be multi-lingual

The actual 'organisation' seems to have been comparatively small but thoroughly pervasive: there are frequent references to the Persian 'whip-men' who appear to have been responsible for maintaining march progress (at least across the Hellespont, but I doubt they were unemployed the rest of the time) and battlefield enthusiasm.

[Jim Webster]

So merely ordering people to produce fodder for your 300,000 LSU is all well and good, but frankly they couldn't support that many livestock anyway, even if they had none of their own.

But how good a guide to ancient Greece (and Thrace) is modern Greece?  Sicily used to be considered a granary of the Mediterranean and wonderfully fertile, ditto Cyrenaica - and look at them today.

Sicily was never the granary of the Med, it  topped up Rome. By the time it became important again (after the loss of Africa) it was mainly because church lands there were being used by the church to support the decreasing Roman population.
But if you want to invent a golden age of Greek agriculture when it could outproduce what it does now in a desperate attempt to prop up the theory, feel free

[Jim Webster]

I think this was touched on in the debate 3 days back; to make the army at all plausible one has to invent a whole group of supporting arms more like one would find post C17th. Or at the very least not something that a semi-feudal society could be reasonably expected to have.

Please, the Achaemenid Empire was Biblical rather than semi-feudal (whatever that is supposed to mean, but I get the impression of 'disorganised' and 'primitive').  It was heir to a tradition of superprojects (Wonders of the World) and, according to the unanimous testimony of sources, super-armies of a size not again reached until the 20th century.  It was also heir to tradition of organisation that oozed bureaucracy at every pore, kept extensive records and, in the case of the Assyrians, moved whole populations (as did the Achaemenids on occasion, witness the Paeonians).

indeed it was probably competent enough to get an army of a couple of hundred thousand to Thermopylae

[Jim Webster]

I would also argue for a large military police style organisation necessary to enforce march discipline. Due to the multi-national nature of the host it would probably need be be multi-lingual

The actual 'organisation' seems to have been comparatively small but thoroughly pervasive: there are frequent references to the Persian 'whip-men' who appear to have been responsible for maintaining march progress (at least across the Hellespont, but I doubt they were unemployed the rest of the time) and battlefield enthusiasm.

keeping order in encampments measured in hundreds of hectares you're going to need more that a few whip men