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

[Jim Webster]

Just checking on the importance of the Scamander on the progress for Northern Greece.  The Scamander/Karamenderes is in Asia Minor.  Am I missing something?

It's Maurice who points out it's the last decent water source before the bridge, the next decent one is the River Hebrus in Thrace.

[Flaminpig0]

I haven't actually seen a' killer argument' on this thread that proves that Herodotus is incapable of being wrong or of grossly exaggerating.

[Jim Webster]

A few more sums. The average lows for the Scamander in modern times according to the chart sits at about 7 m3 s-1. That's 25200 m3 per hour. There are 220 imperial gallons per cubit metre so we are looking at 5 544 000 gallons per hour, more than 100 times Maurice's estimate.

I merely used https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gallons+per+hour+to+cubic+meters+per+second&oq=gallons+per+&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j0l4.4155j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Patrick Waterson]

Well, anyone can have a bad idea day! Generally, I think Peter Green is pretty good, but you need be critical as well, of course. With regards to our topic, he neatly summarizes the main objections to large numbers, so that's why I would refer skeptical people to his reasoning rather than anything I could say.

But how valid are his objections?

The Thessalians at least were a medizing 'work in progress', so they weren't going to have four year grain stockpiles built up there. Other areas also by the looks of it, but more noticeable once into Greece itself.

A more careful reading of the source some here so disparage would reveal the stocking up (or at least the preparations) took four years but the campaign was intended for less than one.  As to what was demanded and obtained from the populations the Achaemenid army marched through:

"Now the dinner, about which a great deal of fuss had been made and for the preparation of which orders had been given long ago, proceeded as I will tell. As soon as the townsmen had word from the herald's proclamation, they divided corn among themselves in their cities and all of them for many months ground it to wheat and barley meal; moreover, they fed the finest beasts that money could buy, and kept landfowl and waterfowl in cages and ponds, for the entertaining of the army. They also made gold and silver cups and bowls and all manner of service for the table. These things were provided for the king himself and those that ate with him. For the rest of the army they provided only food. At the coming of the army, there was always a tent ready for Xerxes to take his rest in, while the men camped out in the open air. When the hour came for dinner, the real trouble for the hosts began. When they had eaten their fill and passed the night there, the army tore down the tent on the next day and marched off with all the movables, leaving nothing but carrying all with them." - Herodotus VII.119

So the Persians were saving their own stocks by living off the locals, who themselves saw a whole year's reserve vanish in a day.  I shall not bother repeating the calculation that the 400 talents spent on a day's food could have fed 2,448,000 men.

At Thermopylae there are four days of waiting, three days of fighting, and a lot of supplies needed to cope with that. Perhaps they could skimp on rations temporarily, but not on water, and the terrain was not going to get much better thereafter either. A good planner would perhaps want a smaller force at this point?

Or a larger supply instalment.  In fact the Persians suffered heavily from the storm at Artemisium, and were never quite the same afterwards, but managed to sustain themselves up to Salamis.  Dividing their army in two after passing through Phocis may have been as much an emergency foraging measure as an attempt to pursue two objectives simultaneously.  Once Salamis was fought, with the corollary that the Persian maritime supply chain was no longer safe, the Achaemenid army was instantly in deep trouble.

Acccording to the Landmark H there are points before and after Thermopylae, but no matter where they are, the effect would be the same in that it would take a very long whack of time to feed 1.7M fighting men plus horses, 3.5M hangers on, food on the hoof, and carts through narrow gaps. H doesn't mention an alternative route that I can see (but that's no guarantee – I might've missed it!), but if there were, where would you see the move into Phocian territory occurring, and would it be much more easily manageable?

This is one of the things which intrigued me about the campaign.  We do note that Xerxes hung on for four days at Thermopylae, perhaps waiting for his army to clear the first of these as much as waiting for the Greeks to go away.  I suspect that only the vehicles went through that gap, the men traversing (at some inconvenience) the higher ground.

That's one way to look at it, but it doesn't make sense to me: if numbers are important enough that 1.7M fighting men (and a fleet on top of that) are considered necessary, then why are those numbers not being emphasized here? If you've got them, why not flaunt them more obviously?

Perhaps because of the way the army marched:
"First went the baggage train and the beasts of burden, and after them a mixed army of all sorts of nations, not according to their divisions but all mingled together; when more than half had passed there was a space left, and these did not come near the king. After that, first came a thousand horsemen, chosen out of all Persians; next, a thousand spearmen, picked men like the others ... [etc.] ... After these there was a space of two stadia, and then the rest of the multitude followed all mixed together." - Herodotus VII.40-41

The picture Herodotus emphasises is hoi polloi in front, then the magnificence of the imperial entourage, then more hoi polloi behind.  He anyway goes through the arithmetic of the army twice (at Doriscus and at Thermopylae) and probably felt that would be sufficient for most readers.

[Patrick Waterson]

I haven't actually seen a' killer argument' on this thread that proves that Herodotus is incapable of being wrong or of grossly exaggerating.

Is this really the way to look at a historical source?  Is not a better one to consider: if the source is correct, we would expect/need the following to occur; how do peripheral clues tie in with this?  Is the account itself consistent or inconsistent?  How does it fit with the practises of the powers concerned as seen in other sources?

I would point out that a number of recent finds have supported some of Herodotus' unlikelier stories, e.g. about Scythian 'drug tents'.  It would be particularly unwise to condemn his account without firm evidence behind one.

[Justin Swanton]

A few more sums. The average lows for the Scamander in modern times according to the chart sits at about 7 m3 s-1. That's 25200 m3 per hour. There are 220 imperial gallons per cubit metre so we are looking at 5 544 000 gallons per hour, more than 100 times Maurice's estimate.

I merely used https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gallons+per+hour+to+cubic+meters+per+second&oq=gallons+per+&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j0l4.4155j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

That gives US gallons: 1 m3 s-1 = 951019 US liquid gallons per hour. So 7 metres a second comes out at 6 657 133 US gallons per hour which shows just how little Maurice can be trusted. I still can't figure out how he thought each English infantryman needed a camping area measuring 25 x 25 metres for his personal convenience.

[Flaminpig0]

I haven't actually seen a' killer argument' on this thread that proves that Herodotus is incapable of being wrong or of grossly exaggerating.

Is this really the way to look at a historical source?  Is not a better one to consider: if the source is correct, we would expect/need the following to occur; how do peripheral clues tie in with this?  Is the account itself consistent or inconsistent?  How does it fit with the practises of the powers concerned as seen in other sources?

I would point out that a number of recent finds have supported some of Herodotus' unlikelier stories, e.g. about Scythian 'drug tents'.  It would be particularly unwise to condemn his account without firm evidence behind one.

I would argue that accepting  the possibility that a historical or other  source is  not fully reliable is compatible with Western enlightenment thinking;  I also am not aware of where I have been particularity unwise enough to condemn his account.

[Jim Webster]

I still can't figure out how he thought each English infantryman needed a camping area measuring 25 x 25 metres for his personal convenience.

now you've lost me, I cannot even find where he was saying that?

[Justin Swanton]

I still can't figure out how he thought each English infantryman needed a camping area measuring 25 x 25 metres for his personal convenience.

now you've lost me, I cannot even find where he was saying that?

[Justin Swanton]

As an example, if I told you that 80 Rhodesian soldiers utterly defeated an enemy camp of 5000 guerrillas all armed to the teeth with the latest in Russian and Chinese military hardware, killing over 1000 of them, would you think that a propaganda exercise a la Herodotus?

Wait – you want me to put modern Rhodesians into service in support or your argument, but you dismiss Maurice and Young?

The point was that it actually happened. The most unlikely events can take place even though on paper they may look like propaganda exercises. Maurice is coming apart for me. I'm willing to read Young - any chance of sending me the relevant pages as scans?

One needs to look at this in terms of ships. 4700 tons per day means 47 ships with a carrying capacity of 100 tons or 16 ships with a carrying capacity of 300 tons. Choose a middle figure and say 30 ships that must offload each day or 3 ships an hour. Not actually such a big deal.

I would suggest that you are being unrealistic.

Because....

There is also the issue of choke points as mentioned by pretty much everyone. H 7.176 mentions the route narrowing to a space the width of a wagon in two places. Try getting 1,700,000 fighting men let alone the other 3.5M plus  followers, cavalry horses, baggage animals, food on the hoof, and baggage carts through spaces that narrow in timely fashion!

Herodotus mentions the chokepoint being at Trachis, which is just before Thermopolae. It is there precisely that Xerxes' problems began, not during the trip from the Hellespont to Greece.

Good, so you do agree that chokepoints are an issue.

They became so at Greece where they were real chokepoints (hence Thermopylae). But not before.

There are of course other objections too, but one that I don't think has been noted in this thread so far is the 'shock and awe factor' that 10 white horses, a chariot, 10 more white horses, 1000 picked cavalrymen, 1000 picked foot, and the 10,000 Immortals elicits in 7.40-41 & 7.55. If the army was really 1,700,000 strong, would so much be made of these comparatively small elite contingents?

Why mention 10 white horses for an army of 200 000 for that matter? The context of the passage is important. Pythius the Lydian had asked Xerxes to release one of his five sons from the army to stay with him at home. Xerxes, furious, has the son executed and "set one half of his body on the right side of the road and the other on the left, so that the army would pass between them." It is not stated how wide the 'road' is, nor if it is the entire army or just a contingent of it that passes by. The army is in three sections: hoi-polloi come first, then a gap, then the king with his elite troops, then a gap, then more hoi-polloi. The mention of the white horses etc. is clearly meant to underscore the magnificence of Xerxes.

Yes, the context is important. The entire army as it was constituted at that stage is marching through (if we are to credit 7.39 & 7.41), yet those were the units mentioned. If the army were 50,000-80,000 strong, then perhaps that would make sense; if the army were 1,000,000 or larger, we might expect to be impressed by mention of contingents from various exotic places, and in larger numbers.

But nobody seems to have been impressed by the levies as such. It was the cream of the Persian army that drew the attention of the writers.

But this is minor by comparison to the logistical problems posed by moving, feeding and providing water for such a massive army.

Well, that's what this thread is trying to examine. Thus far the problems do not seem to have been crippling so long as the Persian fleet dominated the Aegean.

You will believe what you want to believe of course, and nothing anyone here says will change your mind, but you are not convincing anyone either, so it's at a bit of an impasse.

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

[Jim Webster]

I still can't figure out how he thought each English infantryman needed a camping area measuring 25 x 25 metres for his personal convenience.

now you've lost me, I cannot even find where he was saying that?

it's hardly personal convenience. It's an area of concentration. So you've got proper spacing between units to allow units to march in and out and deploy. To make sure latrines aren't dug in bad areas or too close together. To give room for horses to be exercised even if only walked, and all that sort of stuff.

[Justin Swanton]

I still can't figure out how he thought each English infantryman needed a camping area measuring 25 x 25 metres for his personal convenience.

now you've lost me, I cannot even find where he was saying that?

it's hardly personal convenience. It's an area of concentration. So you've got proper spacing between units to allow units to march in and out and deploy. To make sure latrines aren't dug in bad areas or too close together. To give room for horses to be exercised even if only walked, and all that sort of stuff.

So 16 men per hectare. Then by Maurice's standards, Roman soldiers must have perched on each other's shoulders.

[Mark G]

Beyond irony, Justin.

You insist in being proven wrong before you will change your mind, yet dismiss any evidence that contests your position, which you hold to be a matter of faith that the ancient sources must be right .

The only evidence you accept is a differing ancient source , or something supporting an ancient source that you happen to agree with.

Literality nothing has changed from ten pages ago.

Which is remarkably similar to all the other threads where you post reams of your own research and diagrams to back it up, while Patrick requotes masses to translations

The common denominator, the two participants who believe as a mater of faith that the ancient texts are true, and who just coincidentally also happen to be the two participants who have expressed doubts about the scientific method and academic research.  Funny how they are the same two who never seem to accept evidence contradicting their positions.

Best advice now is just let them post their last word and move on.

[Jim Webster]

I still can't figure out how he thought each English infantryman needed a camping area measuring 25 x 25 metres for his personal convenience.

now you've lost me, I cannot even find where he was saying that?

it's hardly personal convenience. It's an area of concentration. So you've got proper spacing between units to allow units to march in and out and deploy. To make sure latrines aren't dug in bad areas or too close together. To give room for horses to be exercised even if only walked, and all that sort of stuff.

So 16 men per hectare. Then by Maurice's standards, Roman soldiers must have perched on each other's shoulders.

given that it was earlier said that using Roman figures meant that camps were too big and that troops could be packed more tightly, I would suggest that actually Maurice should give us pause. He's on about troops being got ready to march, they've got to be able to mend their kit, find the latrines which have been dug well away from their lines and everything.
I don't suppose that any man got the 25m by 25m that you mention, but units will have to be kept apart if only so that guard patrols can get through and break up trouble before it starts.
I'd say that the Roman marching camp is the most densely backed we could expect

[Dangun]

and I don't think any of us have been to Gallipoli (although my Grandfather was there at Sulva Bay), so in this case I think we have to have really good evidence to dismiss the opinion of somebody who had done all of these

That I have done! A side trip from my favorite city for history - Istanbul.
But at the time, I didn't go to equip myself with a view on this topic.
Still, it was a frightfully silly place to start a fight. I mean Gallipoli, not this thread...