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

[Erpingham]

The essential question being which imposition gets us nearer what actually happened.  I am unconvinced that an 'interpretative framework' has anything to offer beyond an expression of preconceptions.

Whereas I feel failure to apply a critical approach just leaves us in a fantasy version of the past, equally based on a preconception of inerrancy.   However, I don't think either of us will convince each other and, as we apply different criteria to "what really happened", we'll not agree here.  Shall we drop the theory side?

By the time Herodotus was collecting information, the King had been well and truly defeated, and inflating numbers would have an effect quite the opposite of glorifying him.

So, logically, they would have falsified the figures downwards?  I suspect continuing to maintain the fiction of an Empire of bottomless military resources suited their purpose better.

So, despite being a member of the Persian Court, Ctesias has his figures wrong?  Other than Simonides, who does give similar figures to Herodotus? 

Being a member of a court does not necessarily make a physician into a historian. 

Whereas being a travelling merchant does?

[Erpingham]

In considering this topic, I've been turning up various works on logistics.  So much so that I thought we may be in need of a brief research guide or reading list.  I'll see if I can start that off.  But I thought it might help to mention John Roth's work on Roman Army logistics, online here

Roth has some interest because he pulls together lots of mentions of logistics in histories, regulations, record documents and so on.  Some of this we've already seen e.g. in discussing Haldon, or sorting out Polybios.  One thing worth noting is, unlike most people, he takes a bit of issue with Engels on ration rates.  He notes Engels goes with a US army ration rate for the Vietnam period, which is for larger individuals than Romans.  By using the same formula, he brings the daily ration rate down from 3,600 calories to 3,300 for a smaller Roman.  He speculates that an army could survive on 3,000 or even 2,500 calories a day, though his ration tables reflect his 3,300 figure.  This doesn't actually affect our rule of thumb of 1kg a day of grain as the basic ration very much - it reduces to .85 kg.  He also notes the higher protein levels found in ancient grain varieties, though still feels the need to bring in a protein ration in the form of meat, cheese or lentils.  He considers wine or vinegar essential for vitamin C levels - we have so far made no allowance for this.

One other subject, also raised by Haldon, is that Roman and Byzantine armies expected soldiers to carry part of their own rations as well as their kit.  Cavalry carried some of their horses' grain fodder too.  The usual level seems to have been 2-4 days.  This would impact on the baggage train.  Though, also reflecting the baggage train, our calculations have made no allowance for the non-food aspect of the baggage train.  Even allowing for the fact that the men carried several days ration, the transport establishment of a legion provided for 1200-1400 mules.

[Justin Swanton]

again, it's not surplus. It's the states taxable income. It's already spent. To claim that a fifth of the produce of a farm was surplus and could be dedicated to a new project would be on a par with claiming that because the modern state takes 20% of income as income tax, all that money can now be dedicated to paying for some new project such as, for example mounting an invasion of Greece. The state has in reality 'spent' the money before it's ever collected.

You can't spend food. You eat it or you export it. If you do neither you store it. What I've tried to demonstrate is that nothing stopped the Persian economy from producing enough food during the preparation period not only to feed the army during its campaign but also to make up for the shortfall in farm labour during that time. Since the sources do affirm the Persians spent years preparing for this campaign, and part of that preparation was creating and filling huge food dumps around the Aegean, one can safely assume they stepped up their grain production by the simple expedient of asking farmers to grow, say 10% more grain, and then taking it as a tax. This could actually have been an ongoing institution.

It might be an idea to have a quick look at how money works. Before money there was barter, which meant Person A gave something to Person B who had to give something equivalent back to Person A. It was about an equitable exchange. Humans survive by helping each other stay alive.

Money extends this exchange system by allowing Person A to give something to Person B who then gives him the means of getting an equitable return from Person C, D or E. Money simply expands the barter system from two to many individuals.

Between a government like the Persian monarchy and its people the same fundamental barter system applied. The people gave grain to the government which then gave an intangible in return, which can be summed up as preservation of the social order: by military protection, enforcement of respect for the laws, and patronage of religion.

With any barter system the rate of exchange can vary as goods gain or lose value in people's estimation. For the Persian monarchy, expansion of the empire would be presented as part of the preservation of the social order, inasmuch as if the Persian state was winning it wasn't losing so everyone could feel confident, happy and secure. Since expansion was an additional service it required additional recompense, hence additional taxation in kind. That taxation in kind would translate as a grain surplus over and above the needs of the agricultural community and the cities, to be stored up in preparation for a campaign. If a campaign was not forthcoming, the grain could presumably be exported or cheaply sold.

This is all theoretical (except the fact the empire did store up grain for campaigns) but seems reasonable enough.

[Jim Webster]

again, it's not surplus. It's the states taxable income. It's already spent. To claim that a fifth of the produce of a farm was surplus and could be dedicated to a new project would be on a par with claiming that because the modern state takes 20% of income as income tax, all that money can now be dedicated to paying for some new project such as, for example mounting an invasion of Greece. The state has in reality 'spent' the money before it's ever collected.

You can't spend food. You eat it or you export it. If you do neither you store it. What I've tried to demonstrate is that nothing stopped the Persian economy from producing enough food during the preparation period not only to feed the army during its campaign but also to make up for the shortfall in farm labour during that time. Since the sources do affirm the Persians spent years preparing for this campaign, and part of that preparation was creating and filling huge food dumps around the Aegean, one can safely assume they stepped up their grain production by the simple expedient of asking farmers to grow, say 10% more grain, and then taking it as a tax. This could actually have been an ongoing institution.

An institution for which there is no evidence whatsoever
We do know how they did things
Please google Entrepreneurs and Empire, The MuraŠû Archive, the MuraŠû Firm,and Persian Rule in Babylonia

It'll come up with a free pdf download of the book which is over 300 pages and discusses many of these things

The Persian empire had no mechanism for instructing farmers to produce more grain, there is no evidence of any stores of grain other than that which is necessary to tide the population over the next poor harvest.
The sources may say that the Persian army spent years preparing for the campaign, all they say is "Reckoning from the recovery of Egypt, Xerxes spent four full years in collecting his host and making ready all things that were needful for his soldiers. It was not till the close of the fifth year that he set forth on his march, accompanied by a mighty multitude. "
There is no basis of assuming that this might mean massive agricultural preparations. Indeed given that apparently he spent a full four years collecting his host those who are claiming it involved moving five or six million men have to account for the dislocation incurred in years one, two, three and four when the host was collected and agricultural output would fall.

[Jim Webster]

It might be an idea to have a quick look at how money works. Before money there was barter, which meant Person A gave something to Person B who had to give something equivalent back to Person A. It was about an equitable exchange. Humans survive by helping each other stay alive.

I refer you to the The MuraŠû Archive again, where we have documents showing how the system really worked. We don't need theoretical models

[Erpingham]

This is all theoretical (except the fact the empire did store up grain for campaigns) but seems reasonable enough.

The issue isn't whether they stored up grain or even that they spent years preparing.  They could do that to launch a much smaller force and, if they stored no food, the army wouldn't get out of Asia.  It would either starve to death or more likely cause a rebellion because it stole its needs from the locals.  What really is at issue is what proportion of available manpower could be mobilised for military expansion.  For the Romans, with a professional emphasis, its about 0.5% of population.  For "professional core plus massed levies" armies like the Mughals or the Han its 1-2%.  If we take the high end of this figure, we use about 8% of the adult male manpower (by my estimate - 10% by Patrick's).  Possible, I think.  This gives us military strength of about a million to play with.  A portion of this - maybe a fifth, is with the fleet.  The other 800,000 are split between fighting forces, support troops, labour and lines of communication.  It is an interesting question what the "teeth to tail" ratio is. Did persian armies really have one support person per fighting man as Herodotus suggests?  Was Herodotus allowing for the depot staff and the labour corps as part of his support people?  Or were they soldiers, each with their own support person?  If we take of 1 in 8 of the personnel for the lines of communication and engineering units, we could be looking at invading Greece with 700,000 men.

Now, I think we are going to have great difficulties moving 700,000 through Northern Greece and I'd prefer a lower figure, but it does give a defensible "high" estimate.

[Andreas Johansson]

He speculates that an army could survive on 3,000 or even 2,500 calories a day

I haven't looked at the book yet, but one notes in passing that "survive" and "maintain combat effectiveness" aren't the same thing.

[Justin Swanton]

An institution for which there is no evidence whatsoever
We do know how they did things
Please google Entrepreneurs and Empire, The MuraŠû Archive, the MuraŠû Firm,and Persian Rule in Babylonia

It'll come up with a free pdf download of the book which is over 300 pages and discusses many of these things

Fine, I'll look at it.

[Erpingham]

He speculates that an army could survive on 3,000 or even 2,500 calories a day

I haven't looked at the book yet, but one notes in passing that "survive" and "maintain combat effectiveness" aren't the same thing.

As I say, he doesn't actually calculate on that basis, just notes that an army could be sustained at that level for a time if needs be.  The British army ration in WWII was 3,700 calories but often dropped below 3,000 in action.  US Army was similar.  But in these cases (and similar in WWI) troops were rotated out of the line and receive better rations in rear areas to make up for the effects.  This obviously couldn't happen for our Persian expeditionary force, though maybe the Thasos incident may suggest there were occassional high points in a mundane day-to-day existence.

[Patrick Waterson]

It's a simple as this.
If you produce food you turn up to the market to sell it.

Not in the ancient Near East.  The Persians did not even have markets.  One should understand the society one is dealing with before imposing commercialism upon it.  Or rather, instead of imposing commercialism upon it.

yes, money. Not grain

Grain and money.  The mass of the population never saw money unless there were mercenaries in town.  Perhaps I need to be a bit more explicit about Herodotus I.192.

"I shall show how great the power of Babylon is by many other means, but particularly by this. All the land that the great King rules is parcelled out to provision him and his army, and pays tribute besides [parex tou phorou = in addition to that which is brought in by way of payment]: now the territory of Babylon feeds him for four of the twelve months in the year, the whole of the rest of Asia providing for the other eight."

parex tou phorou is 'in addition to that [grain] which is brought in by way of payment'.  Egypt feeds the army of occupation and provides a tax in grain.  Is this sufficiently clear?  (It also contributes a heap of gold to the treasury but that is another matter.)

I refer you to the The MuraŠû Archive again, where we have documents showing how the system really worked. We don't need theoretical models

The Murashu Archive details the activity of a family of Jewish moneylenders.  I hardly think it a valid basis for assessing the Achaemenid administrative system.

[Flaminpig0]

The Persians did not even have markets. 

https://youtu.be/IdiaRUuDfSo

sorry couldn't resist

[Jim Webster]

It's a simple as this.
If you produce food you turn up to the market to sell it.

Not in the ancient Near East.  The Persians did not even have markets.   

That would come as a shock to Xenophon
"As for the barbarians, they were terribly frightened; the Cilician queen took to flight in her carriage, and the people in the market27 left their wares behind and took to their heels;"

"As for the troops, their supply of grain gave out, and it was not possible to buy any except in the Lydian52 market attached to the barbarian army of Cyrus,53 at the price of four sigli for a capith of wheat flour or barley meal. "

[Patrick Waterson]

What really is at issue is what proportion of available manpower could be mobilised for military expansion.  For the Romans, with a professional emphasis, its about 0.5% of population.  For "professional core plus massed levies" armies like the Mughals or the Han its 1-2%.  If we take the high end of this figure, we use about 8% of the adult male manpower (by my estimate - 10% by Patrick's).  Possible, I think.  This gives us military strength of about a million to play with.

My impression was that this percentage was of total population, not just adult male manpower.  8% of adult male manpower (8% of 20%) is about 1.6% of total population, which is only a little over the 1% considered to be sustainable as a full time professional army (although Frederick William I's Prussia by dint of dedicated effort maintained 4%).  A comprehensive mobilisation of the Empire's male military manpower would net a somewhat higher figure.  A significantly higher figure, in fact, whether one takes 8% or 10% of population.

And now onto the philosophy of history ...

The essential question being which imposition gets us nearer what actually happened.  I am unconvinced that an 'interpretative framework' has anything to offer beyond an expression of preconceptions.

Whereas I feel failure to apply a critical approach just leaves us in a fantasy version of the past, equally based on a preconception of inerrancy.   However, I don't think either of us will convince each other and, as we apply different criteria to "what really happened", we'll not agree here.  Shall we drop the theory side?

We might as well, although to me the 'critical approach' seems often to end up as more of a cultural smokescreen or (present company excepted) a cheap reputation-builder than a perceptive exercise.  Please do not get me wrong: I do not advocate a completely uncritical approach; I just want to evaluate what the source actually says rather than just what we say about the source.

By the time Herodotus was collecting information, the King had been well and truly defeated, and inflating numbers would have an effect quite the opposite of glorifying him.

So, logically, they would have falsified the figures downwards?  I suspect continuing to maintain the fiction of an Empire of bottomless military resources suited their purpose better.

But as the 'military resources' concerned were already pushing up daisies, it is hard to see what this would achieve save to further discredit the Empire.

So, despite being a member of the Persian Court, Ctesias has his figures wrong?  Other than Simonides, who does give similar figures to Herodotus?

Being a member of a court does not necessarily make a physician into a historian.

Whereas being a travelling merchant does?

This is looking at the matter the wrong way round, not unlike hinting that a mere patent agent can never make a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical scientist.  Individual merit (or lack of it) as a historian does not depend upon position, but on ability and judgement.

[Flaminpig0]

Found this article which might be of interest  https://economics.mit.edu/files/7258

[Jim Webster]

]
The Murashu Archive details the activity of a family of Jewish moneylenders.  I hardly think it a valid basis for assessing the Achaemenid administrative system.

I suggest you read the book, not the wiki

The Business of the Murasu Firm
To a limited extend the Murasu firm belonged within the "feudal" order. A few texts refer to bow lands that seemingly belonged to members of the family or to agents of the firm. A place named Bit Murasu, "estate of Murasu", suggests an extended domain belonging to the family, but there is no outright confirmation of this suggestion. In at least one case, the Murasu family acquired ownership of a
share in a bow fief through an instrument of fictive adoption . In the great majority of its transactions, however, the Murasu house figured not as a participant in the system of land grants but as an accessory to it, undertaking the management of property which belonged, on a variety of titles, to others.
The primary enterprise of the firm was agricultural management. The firm leased land and water from their owners, paying out rents and taxes to the owners or to their representatives. The greater part of these properties was sublet in turn to tenants of the firm, usually along with livestock, equipment, and seed. This process of lease and sublease produced several classes of documents kept in the Archive:leases of property to the firm; formally similar leases to the firm's tenants; and receipts for rents and taxes paid out by the firm.
In addition, the firm provided a second regular service. The Murasus made loans to landholders against pledges of real property. This process accounts for the largest category of texts in the Archive, certificates of obligation (u'iltu) with real security; it also accounts for the occasional mention of pledged lands (bit maskaniiti) in other categories of texts.
A minority of documents deal with diverse transactions of other kinds, secondary to the main lines of the firm's business: work-contracts, redemptions of distrained debtors, litigations, and so on.

Another crucial sector of the Murasil house's business is entirely undocumented in the Archive. It must be inferred nevertheless. The greatest part of the firm's discernible income, from rentals drawn on its subleases and from repayments of loans, was in the form of produce. But the greatest part of the firm's discernible expenditures, in rents and taxes paid to landholders or their agents, was in the form of silver. The firm must therefore have had a means of converting produce into specie. Cardascia and others have postulated that the Murasils retailed their stores of crops to the urban populations of Nippur and its environs, receiving silver in payment for the sales   . It is a plausible suggestion. The sources of demand and supply, and an organization well situated to intervene between them, are clearly inevidence; only the retail mechanism is unattested. If the guess is correct, then it is not surprising that this retail activity left no trace in the Archive: receipts or bills of sale, if any such documents were issued, would naturally have been kept by the buyers, not by the vendors; and inventories or memoranda of the sales business would not have been filed in an Archive consisting primarily of legal records. The Murasil firm, at any rate, whether by sales or by other means, served another function accessory to the system of land tenure, namely monetary exchange. The Murasils acquired silver and supplied it directly, in the form of rents, to landholders,
and indirectly, in the form of taxes, to the Persian crown.

This firm was at the core of our discussion