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

[Jim Webster]

6. The campsites need not be impossibly large and the local water supply is adequate for the needs of 5 million men.
This statement can only really be made by ignoring arguments made.  The water issue has only been tackled by stating Maurice made a major miscalculation of the rate of flow in Asia Minor, so therefore all issues modern armies on the march had with watering horses can be dismissed

If their calculation accuracy is anything like Maurice's, we had better not just dismiss them but discard them altogether.  Herodotus notes which rivers (and lakes) supplied the army effectively and which ran dry.

Remember that Herodotus was not an eye witness for this.
He may merely be quoting a source that was wrong on army size (or he misunderstood it) and quoted a source that was correct on the rivers running dry.
Maurice's calculation accuracy with regard river flow seems nearer what is possible than the calculations of Herodotus with regards army size 

[Imperial Dave]

I've just trawled through the last 20 or so pages to catch up.......lively thread 

One that may well beat the 100 page record.

A problem is that for some of the thread participants the question is existential - if a key ancient writer such as Herodotus 'lied' then this casts doubt on other ancient writers and thus throws into question ancient history as a serious field of study. If the source can be wrong what can we rely on  in our historical studies- might we just as well be reading Michael Moorcock. There is also an issue that if we doubt ancient sources we are displaying a type of cultural arrogance that is akin to racism and much like the numerous historians and archaeologists who study these matters we have an agenda that derives from bad faith or moral failings. The latter tendency seems to be combined with what I experience as a magical world view that accepts the historical existence of 'manna from heaven' and the bible as history. One could further posit that questions around common sense and logic is equally existential and is not free from value-based analysis.

In these circumstances I am not convinced that the question posed is in any way answerable to the satisfaction of the participants.

Yes. It's a bit if a  nebulous question/answer. The trouble with authors and writers is that boss creeps in somewhere and where there is boss there is poetic licence lurking over it's shoulder. You only have to read the same story told by different newspapers today to see what I mean

damn autoquote....I wasnt referring to Roy by the way. It should have said BIAS 

[Flaminpig0]

Remember that Herodotus was not an eye witness for this.

Is there not some doubt as to his ability to speak Persian?

I am waiting for someone, not necessarily Patrick or Justin to address the command and control issues that a multi-million man army has particularity as a host of such a size is a novelty for the  Persian Empire.

[Flaminpig0]

Xerxes invasion has been in Western eyes is a key event with existential overtones in that it has been claimed that if it had succeeded Western culture as we know it would not have existed. This is  debatable however I feel it is reasonable to assert that the invasion is on some level viewed in that light. Might a Persian perspective be radically different? True the first invasion had been beaten back but prior to this the Greeks had generally been defeated. Xerxes invasion therefore would be business as usual Persian expansion and therefore a large army was needed but not one that would damage the Persian economy and possibly destabilise the regime.  I find the argument that the 4-5 million army was a vanity project as lacking evidence. From that perspective the need for such a huge army to terrify the Greeks seems less essential and an army within the range suggested by modern authors seems more likely. Most Greek city states would find an army circa 60,000+ terrifyingly large.

On a separate point the arguments put forward to support the Herodotusian figures dehumanises the Persians. They become a swarm of sub-humans obeying the will of a Hitler like leader, needing less space than westerners as well as mistreating the very animals upon which they are dependent  They have so little human qualities that although largely irregular troops they can march in step in wide formations across country keeping order that the Brigade of Guards would find challenging. Whilst, of course, being forced on by an extensive corps of whip men which although the soldiers are armed they are too scared to challenge as unlike the Greeks they are effeminate unfree men who wear trousers. They also seem to be able to swarm over mountains like locusts and be able to home in on off road strategic objectives which they can't be aware of as accurate mapping for the area would be non-existent. This is Orientalism gone mad and is uncomfortably close to Frank Miller's 300; all that is missing is the Rhino, Giant Elephants and Lena Hedey.

[Dangun]

On a separate point the arguments put forward to support the Herodotusian figures dehumanises the Persians.

I don't think we can blame Herodutus for either Orientalism or Frank Miller.

How about we simply generalize with -  historians whether recording a victory or a defeat, may be tempted to overstate the number of enemies?

Equating any defense of Herodutus' numbers to Orientalism or dehumanization is basically ad hominem and therefore unhelpful.

[Flaminpig0]

On a separate point the arguments put forward to support the Herodotusian figures dehumanises the Persians.

I don't think we can blame Herodutus for either Orientalism or Frank Miller.

How about we simply generalize with -  historians whether recording a victory or a defeat, may be tempted to overstate the number of enemies?

Those are both points I would agree with.

[Flaminpig0]

On a separate point the arguments put forward to support the Herodotusian figures dehumanises the Persians.

Equating any defense of Herodutus' numbers to Orientalism or dehumanization is basically ad hominem and therefore unhelpful.

Actually the argument put forward has been the reverse; that doubting Herodotus's figures s an exemplar of 'cultural racism' and in any casedemeans the Persians as it implies they were primitive.Obviously the intent on the part of those defending Herodotus figures  is not to dehumanise the Persians but the arguments they put forward  depicts the Empire in a very peculiar way which does accidentaly imping on ideas of orientalism.

[Justin Swanton]

The birthday supper the king gave once a year was a rather different affair from the supper the king took whilst on campaign.

While this is true, I think the tale does warn us to be careful with figures.  We now know the Thasians probably spent far more on entertaining Xerxes than we had assumed.

The Persians were able to carry away with their baggage the tent in which the king and those who with him had dined, which implies it wasn't that big and therefore didn't accommodate a very large number. It makes sense - looking at other military commanders on campaign - that the high command eats well but on a modest scale. An army on the march is not the place for huge banquets.

[Justin Swanton]

This brief essay is not unsympathetic to Herodotus but does point out that among his ancient critics were Thucydides, Aristotle and Plutarch.  Cicero referred admiringly of Herodotus as the Father of History but said, in the same sentence, his work contained many legends.  Placing Herodotus on an infallible pedestal seems inappropriate given his ancient reputation and does him a disservice.  He was a ground breaker, a man of expansive interests  and no mean writer.  He doesn't need to be a demi-god.

I don't think anyone in this thread has tried to place Herodotus on an infallible pedestal and make him a demi-god...

*********************

...sorry, had to take time off to refill the lamp next to his statue.

Now where were we?

Ah, yes. My approach has been to assume a primary source like Herodotus is accurate unless he can be proven wrong, rather than assume he is inaccurate on as major an issue as whether the Persian army numbered 3,4 million men or 200 000 whilst accepting the opinions of contemporary scholars on the subject as being necessarily accurate. The opinions of contemporaries are built on a number of wrong assumptions or at least assumptions that cannot be proven: the rate of flow of rivers, size of a Persian camp, method of march of the Persian army, the inability of the Persian fleet to supply such an army, and so on. These assumptions, though unprovable, have become fixed truths in Academia, such that it is seen as absurd to question them, and any serious discussion of them is ruled out of court right from word go.

So it is possible to discuss Herodotus as a kind of entertaining mental exercise, but to consider that he might actually have got his numbers right is to put him on a pedestal and make him a demi-god.

Would you consider that a fair assessment?

[Jim Webster]

The birthday supper the king gave once a year was a rather different affair from the supper the king took whilst on campaign.

While this is true, I think the tale does warn us to be careful with figures.  We now know the Thasians probably spent far more on entertaining Xerxes than we had assumed.

The Persians were able to carry away with their baggage the tent in which the king and those who with him had dined, which implies it wasn't that big and therefore didn't accommodate a very large number. It makes sense - looking at other military commanders on campaign - that the high command eats well but on a modest scale. An army on the march is not the place for huge banquets.

We have to remember that Kings had other priorities, an army on the march was their capital city and they had to rule and dispense judgement from it.
If you look at http://www.livius.org/sources/content/polyaenus-stratagems/alexanders-tent/

Alexander's tent
[4.3.24] When deciding legal cases among the Macedonians or the Greeks, Alexander preferred to have a modest and common courtroom. but among the barbarians he preferred a brilliant courtroom suitable for a general, astonishing the barbarians even by the courtroom's appearance. When deciding cases among the Bactrians, Hyrcanians, and Indians, he had a tent made as follows: the tent was large enough for 100 couches;note fifty gold pillars supported it; embroidered gold canopies, stretched out above, covered the place. Inside the tent 500 Persian Apple Bearersnote stood first, dressed in purple and yellow clothing. After the Apple Bearers stood an equal number of archers in different clothing, for some wore flame-colored, some dark blue, and some scarlet. In front of these stood Macedonian Silver Shields, 500 of the tallest men. In the middle of the room stood the gold throne, on which Alexander sat to give audiences. Bodyguards stood on each side when the king heard cases.

In a circle around the tent stood the corps of elephants Alexander had equipped, and 1,000 Macedonians wearing Macedonian apparel. Next to these were 500 Elamites dressed in purple, and after them, in a circle around them, 10,000 Persians, the handsomest and tallest of them, adorned with Persian decorations, and all carrying short swords. Such was Alexander's courtroom among the barbarians.

[Jim Webster]

Ah, yes. My approach has been to assume a primary source like Herodotus is accurate unless he can be proven wrong,

He will never be proven wrong. It's an impossibility. Even if we find a Persian record of the campaign which showed the Army was barely 100,000 strong, it might merely be a propaganda account to talk away the defeat.

For me, it's the big picture. Given what I know about grazing, and grain production and storage, given what I've read about agriculture in the area and in the period, given what I've read about Persian armies at the time, the internal politics of the Empire, the fact that this can only  be done using techniques nobody used before or since. Everything conspires against Xerxes and his horde

[Justin Swanton]

The birthday supper the king gave once a year was a rather different affair from the supper the king took whilst on campaign.

While this is true, I think the tale does warn us to be careful with figures.  We now know the Thasians probably spent far more on entertaining Xerxes than we had assumed.

The Persians were able to carry away with their baggage the tent in which the king and those who with him had dined, which implies it wasn't that big and therefore didn't accommodate a very large number. It makes sense - looking at other military commanders on campaign - that the high command eats well but on a modest scale. An army on the march is not the place for huge banquets.

We have to remember that Kings had other priorities, an army on the march was their capital city and they had to rule and dispense judgement from it.
If you look at http://www.livius.org/sources/content/polyaenus-stratagems/alexanders-tent/

Alexander's tent
[4.3.24] When deciding legal cases among the Macedonians or the Greeks, Alexander preferred to have a modest and common courtroom. but among the barbarians he preferred a brilliant courtroom suitable for a general, astonishing the barbarians even by the courtroom's appearance. When deciding cases among the Bactrians, Hyrcanians, and Indians, he had a tent made as follows: the tent was large enough for 100 couches;note fifty gold pillars supported it; embroidered gold canopies, stretched out above, covered the place. Inside the tent 500 Persian Apple Bearersnote stood first, dressed in purple and yellow clothing. After the Apple Bearers stood an equal number of archers in different clothing, for some wore flame-colored, some dark blue, and some scarlet. In front of these stood Macedonian Silver Shields, 500 of the tallest men. In the middle of the room stood the gold throne, on which Alexander sat to give audiences. Bodyguards stood on each side when the king heard cases.

In a circle around the tent stood the corps of elephants Alexander had equipped, and 1,000 Macedonians wearing Macedonian apparel. Next to these were 500 Elamites dressed in purple, and after them, in a circle around them, 10,000 Persians, the handsomest and tallest of them, adorned with Persian decorations, and all carrying short swords. Such was Alexander's courtroom among the barbarians.

Fair enough. Alexander's tent corresponds closely to a Persian royal pavilion and may even have been the tent of Darius.

The question then remains how big the tent of the Thasians was and how many Persian notables it held, which then questions what percentage of the 400 talents was spent regaling the Persian high command what percentage was spent feeding the ordinary troops. Which then leaves the number of ordinary troops an open question if we just look at the Thasian supper.

One point though: the Thasian tent was made specifically for a supper, not for judging cases. How many men of the Persian army would be of a sufficient rank to dine with the king? A couple of dozen? A hundred? More? That would help to get some idea of the size of the tent.

One other final point: assume an army of 4 million men. It would take 111 talents to feed them for a day - give them the equivalent of one really good meal. That leaves 80 talents = US$3,560,000.00 for Xerxes and VIPs.

[Patrick Waterson]

none of the accounts of these two actions talk about 6 million
Not only that but it is a lot easier to do things in the heart of the Empire than it is to project power into a rocky, grain deficient wasteland beyond the empire.

Of course.  But Artaxerxes' 900,000 (1.2 million if Abrocomas' tranients are considered) and Darius' 1,000,000 are also contested and for much the same reasons as Xerxes' 1.7 million.  Remember that 5.23 million is Herodotus' estimate including noncombatants, and that being difficult is not the same as being impossible.

For me, it's the big picture. Given what I know about grazing, and grain production and storage, given what I've read about agriculture in the area and in the period, given what I've read about Persian armies at the time, the internal politics of the Empire, the fact that this can only  be done using techniques nobody used before or since.

Then I suspect your reading is seriously flawed in this respect: Greek sources give a very different picture.  Ultimately it comes down to a question of who knows better about the conditions of the time: people writing at the time, or people writing a couple of millennia later.

The internal politics of the Empire need to be looked at reign-by-reign rather than telescoped; the latter approach is misleading and ascribes to the early Empire the difficulties of the later Empire.

Everything conspires against Xerxes and his horde

Replace 'everything' by 'everyone' and you get a more accurate picture.

[Patrick Waterson]

Actually the argument put forward has been the reverse; that doubting Herodotus's figures s an exemplar of 'cultural racism'

Let us straighten out this misrepresentation.  'Cultural racism' (or we can call it 'cultural vanity' in order to avoid using an -ism) is the imposition of our own outlook on previous culture(s), which I regret some people do in spades, perhaps through unfamiliarity with the culture(s) in question, and as part of the process automatically reject any really significant achievement by such cultures, principally:
1) Fielding very large numbers
2) Defeating large numbers with small numbers
3) Possessing organisational capabilities in excess of those found in intervening ages.

and in any casedemeans the Persians as it implies they were primitive.

More importantly, it seems to assume that the Achaemenids would follow our imposed picture of them, a standpoint of arrogance based on ignorance.  Arrogance can be lived with; it is the ignorance which is so damaging.

Obviously the intent on the part of those defending Herodotus figures  is not to dehumanise the Persians but the arguments they put forward  depicts the Empire in a very peculiar way which does accidentaly imping on ideas of orientalism.

Imping??

[Jim Webster]

none of the accounts of these two actions talk about 6 million
Not only that but it is a lot easier to do things in the heart of the Empire than it is to project power into a rocky, grain deficient wasteland beyond the empire.

Of course.  But Artaxerxes' 900,000 (1.2 million if Abrocomas' tranients are considered) and Darius' 1,000,000 are also contested and for much the same reasons as Xerxes' 1.7 million.  Remember that 5.23 million is Herodotus' estimate including noncombatants, and that being difficult is not the same as being impossible.

yes, contested, often by people who have actually had to move large numbers of men about.
There appears to be a general rule that the better our evidence of a campaign, the smaller the armies get