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

[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.  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."

there are ancient authorities other than Herodotus, indeed there are archives from the time still available. I recommend you consult them

[Jim Webster]

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%).   

Given that Xerxes apparently put 12% of his population into the field, the prussians obviously weren't trying!

[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.

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.

Having now looked at the relevant bits of the book, he makes a good case that a Roman army could remain effective more-or-less indefinitely on 3000 kcal/day, due to Roman soldiers on average being smaller and older than the Americans Engels based his figures on.

Xerxes' soldiers were surely more like Caesar's than Johnson's in terms of size. If Herodotus' numbers are anywhere close to accurate their average age must also have been above Engels' late adolescents' simply because there wouldn't be enough men in the 16-19 age bracket. (Unless, I guess, we're to suppose the army included massive contingents of child soldiers.)

(If the true numbers were more Delbrückian, I expect the average age would still have been well above 20 but that's based on little but prejudice about how loosely "feudal" armies work.)

On the third appendage, Xerxes' expedition involved an awful lot of marching compared to what the typical Roman or American had to do, so presumably caloric requirements in this particular case were somewhat higher than normal. Acc'd to some numbers I saw somewhere*, marching for eight hours roughly doubles your caloric expenditure compared to sitting around all day, so this is a significant factor.

* One of my sister's biochem textbooks, specifically.

[Justin Swanton]

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%).   

Given that Xerxes apparently put 12% of his population into the field, the prussians obviously weren't trying!

Full time professional (and equipped with 18th century weapons)

[Patrick Waterson]

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. "

As I said, the Persians did not even have markets.  And they ruled the Empire.

Many of their subjects, Lydians, Ionians, Cilicians and Babylonians, among others, did have markets, but these were local produce exchanges, not overwhelming driving forces of the economy.

Given that Xerxes apparently put 12% of his population into the field, the prussians obviously weren't trying!

More accurately, the Prussians did not have a universal military service obligation.  Their army was a standing army (particularly during the Great Elector's numerous parades).  The Achaemenids followed the Biblical period pattern of mobilising the mass of the population - or as much of it as they felt a need for - when going on campaign.

]
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 essence, they were taking the day-to-day running of estates out of the hands of the owners, leaving these to get on with what they felt was important in life.  This kind of thing seems to have been par for the course for Jewish families who did not return to Judah (see the Book of Tobit for a not dissimilar arrangement operated at a higher level by Israelite families under Sargon, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon of Assyria).

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.

"In that day Tobit remembered the money which he had committed to Gabael in Rhages in Media ..." this is all very familiar.

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.

A reasonable and logical deduction.  The question then arises: what was the origin of this silver?

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 in evidence; only the retail mechanism is unattested.

I note the Murasus have become the Murasils, but that triviality aside I would agree there seems to be no good reason why they should not transfer food to city authorities on a regular basis in return for remuneration.  Or that they might sell to another Jewish concern which ran retail operations in the cities.

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.

All of which is of genuine interest, although I do not see how it does anything other than indicate that Jews filled many of the financial niches in the Achaemenid Empire, at least in Mesopotamia, and arranged trades, probably with each other, to keep food moving to cities for day-to-day consumption as a means of ensuring the estate met its money obligations.

What none of this demonstrates, at least to my mind, is any suggestion that the entire output of grain was spoken for consumption-wise before it was even planted.  It may well have had its destiny planned, but there is nothing to suggest that the destiny of the whole crop excluded long-term (relatively speaking) storage.

[Jim Webster]

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%).   

Given that Xerxes apparently put 12% of his population into the field, the prussians obviously weren't trying!

Full time professional (and equipped with 18th century weapons)

Given that a lot of them could have been away from home for more than a year that makes them full time and professional in anybodies book
They were hardly going to stop and eke out their incomes with a bit of basket weaving 
As for 18th century weapons, cheap mass produced clothing and a massed produced musket is no big deal, Xerxes would have hard it harder because he didn't have mass production

[Jim Webster]

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. "

As I said, the Persians did not even have markets.  And they ruled the Empire.

Many of their subjects, Lydians, Ionians, Cilicians and Babylonians, among others, did have markets, but these were local produce exchanges, not overwhelming driving forces of the economy.

That is frankly silly, I'm not wasting time with it.

[Jim Webster]

More accurately, the Prussians did not have a universal military service obligation.  Their army was a standing army (particularly during the Great Elector's numerous parades).  The Achaemenids followed the Biblical period pattern of mobilising the mass of the population - or as much of it as they felt a need for - when going on campaign.

Please read some of the documentation they left. We find men who have an obligation to serve, and we find other individuals or institutions who have an obligation to provide men, normally as part deal involving the granting of land. The Persians didn't just sweep up men who got in the way of the press gangs
None of this should be new to you, I even did a slingshot article about it a couple of years back. Babylonian infantry were paid the same as Greek mercenaries. (There is a vague possibility that it might be Babylonian cavalry but either way it means that these were properly recruited men paid sensible money, not hordes recruited by the whip)

[Jim Webster]

A reasonable and logical deduction.  The question then arises: what was the origin of this silver?

apparently you dig it out of the ground

[Jim Webster]

I note the Murasus have become the Murasils, but that triviality aside I would agree there seems to be no good reason why they should not transfer food to city authorities on a regular basis in return for remuneration.  Or that they might sell to another Jewish concern which ran retail operations in the cities.

There is also no reason why they should not sell it to Babylonians in the market, (after all you've graciously granted the Babylonians a market)
What evidence have you that the city authorities (and if you read the book you'd realise how vague a term that really was) actually wanted to acquire grain other than to feed their own staff (many of whom would be paid by being granted lands anyway)

[Jim Webster]

All of which is of genuine interest, although I do not see how it does anything other than indicate that Jews filled many of the financial niches in the Achaemenid Empire, at least in Mesopotamia, and arranged trades, probably with each other, to keep food moving to cities for day-to-day consumption as a means of ensuring the estate met its money obligations.

What none of this demonstrates, at least to my mind, is any suggestion that the entire output of grain was spoken for consumption-wise before it was even planted.  It may well have had its destiny planned, but there is nothing to suggest that the destiny of the whole crop excluded long-term (relatively speaking) storage.

This is the giddy limit, now you're arguing that a book you've never read, is wrong.
How on earth can you say that it doesn't demonstrate something if you've never read it?

You have completely and utterly missed the entire point of the book. Perhaps you really ought to read it

[Erpingham]

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.

You've argued in a circle here. 8% x 25% = 2%. 10% x 20% is 2 %. 

As to whether a "mass mobilisation" will generate a larger percentage is, surely, back to speculation? 

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.

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.

But Herodotus wrote a generation after Xerxes expedition, not a few weeks later.  The Persians would have every reason to maintain the image of a huge, powerful empire which could put huge armies in the field.  Sorry, I don't there is a killer argument for you in this.

  Individual merit (or lack of it) as a historian does not depend upon position, but on ability and judgement.

This is true.  But it also depends on knowledge.  And Ctesias certainly had access at high level. 

[Justin Swanton]

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%).   

Given that Xerxes apparently put 12% of his population into the field, the prussians obviously weren't trying!

Full time professional (and equipped with 18th century weapons)

Given that a lot of them could have been away from home for more than a year that makes them full time and professional in anybodies book
They were hardly going to stop and eke out their incomes with a bit of basket weaving 

Cf. #982

As for 18th century weapons, cheap mass produced clothing and a massed produced musket is no big deal, Xerxes would have hard it harder because he didn't have mass production

One needs to bear in mind there was no such thing as mass production in the 18th century. The use of machine tools to make parts in quantity only began from the beginning of the 19th century. See here. Muskets were individually hand-made by craftsmen, and there is a great deal more that goes into manufacturing a musket, with it concomitant supply of balls and gunpowder, than goes into a spear - or just a fire-hardened sharpened stick.

So yes, keeping 4% of the population permanently in military service, wearing complicated hand-made uniforms and bearing complex hand-made weapons, was an achievement for the Prussian state, and makes keeping 14% in military service for a couple of years without uniforms or complex weapons quite easy by comparison.

[Jim Webster]

makes keeping 14% in military service for a couple of years without uniforms or complex weapons quite easy by comparison.

I beg to differ

[Justin Swanton]

makes keeping 14% in military service for a couple of years without uniforms or complex weapons quite easy by comparison.

I beg to differ

Vive la différence!