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

[Patrick Waterson]

[
What is interesting is to examine the reasons for such conclusions.  Leaving aside in hoc signo vinces for now (albeit remembering that the 'trinity sign' triple sun at Barnet has lately acquired a scientific explanation),

The "triple sun" appeared at Mortimer's Cross, ten years earlier than Barnet.  Not a lot of sun at Barnet, which was fought on a foggy April morning.

Yes, quite correct, my apologies - moral: check before posting!

Barnet was the occasion of the radiant sun - a similarlty in shield devices which, combined with repositioning of wings during fog, led to serious mistaken identity for the Lancastrians (and no hint of divine signalling).

[Patrick Waterson]

Leaving aside in hoc signo vinces for now

Agreed, its not an appealing topic.

But Eusebius is an interesting source on this event, not because of the religious content, but because he wrote a history of this event twice - once in the Ecclesiastical History and once in the Life of Constantine.

And whenever we get two histories the comparison is revealing. Not surprisingly, it is the later of Eusebius two versions, the one with more hagiographical intent, that has much more of the silly unbelievable stuff in it. (As it happens there are also inconsistencies with Lactanious and Zosimos.)

It is very noticeable that once Christian authors start to write history it becomes hagiography.  That said, if one looks into, say, the two priestly dynastic lists we have for the early Libyan Dynasty in Egypt, which are used to try and establish the succession of pharaohs in this dynasty, one finds they contradict each other.  Beware a priest with a legacy claim to prove! (Herodotus, incidentaly, helps to solve the Libyan Dynasty succession question - he treeats this dynasty is some detail with, crucially, the deeds of the respective rulers, which provides identification points.)

Historical sources are not all contradictory; for example, matching the Bible with the Amarna letters shows a remarkable degree of correspondence.  (It also raises many niggling details which are still not quite resolved to everyone's satisfaction, notably who was Rib-Addi?  Even this can be sorted out by careful use of context.)

Herodotus himself can often be seen sifting contradictory accounts.  I have earlier described his evaluation methods, which are unexceptionable.

We don't have a parallel history to Herodotus on most of the topics he covered. But if we did, we can say with near certainty that it would show all sorts of errors, omissions, exaggerations etc. etc. because everytime we are lucky enough to get parallel literary sources that's what happens.

We cannot say such things 'with near certainty'.  What we can say is that such a parallel history would agree or differ over points of importance, and in the latter event we would be making assessments of reliability.  These would perforce be based principally on the respective sources' track record.  Over the past few years, a number of Herodotus' stories (e.g. Scythian recreational practices) have been substantiated by archaeology, which is encouraging.

While we lack a parallel history, we do have a near-contemporary, Thucydides, who was keen to show up what he perceived as any error or weakness in Herodotus: "For instance the notion that the Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the fact being that they have only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, when there is no such thing." - Thucydides I.20.  He makes a general swipe at "... the lays of a poet displaying the exaggerations of his craft" and "the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat being out of the reach of evidence and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enshrining them in legend." - idem I.21

Perhaps significantly, Thucydides specifically does not lambast anyone for over-egging the Persian pudding.  He simply says:

"The Median War, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land."

And that is the limit of his excursion into commentary on and disparagement of Herodotus' magnum opus apart from his remarks on Spartan kings' votes and the Pitanes.  (The latter were the company commanded by Amompharetus at Plataea.)  Given the prominence he assigns to minor details of Spartan institutions, would he really have passed over a potential opportunity to cut Herodotus off at the knees for exaggeration of Achaemenid numbers?

I am not suggesting for a minute that we throw something out just because it contains errors. If we do that we have nothing.

But if 117 million Thais is too many, how many would have been too many Persians?

This is one way to calculate such a figure.

Population estimates for the Achaemenid Empire range from 17 million to 55 million (at least those I have seen).  Ergo, the full potential military manpower (20% of population) would range from 3.4 million to 11 million.  Prime age military manpower would be half that, 10% of population, so 1.7 million to 5.5 million.  So 12 million Persians would have been too many under any circumstances, and 6 million would be pushing the effective enevelope.  Herodotus' figure (partly estimated, but on a rational basis) is 5,283,220.  Of this, perhaps 600,000 (300,000 fighting troops plus an equal number of support individuals) is contributed by the Thracians and Medising Greeks, leaving 4,683,220 as the total Achaemenid manpower involved, half of which was rated as combatant.

4,683,220 falls well within an acceptable mobilisation figure for the Achaemenid Empire based on population estimates.  (This figure is strenuous but not impossible for an average population estimate of 35 million, crippling at the lowest estimate of 17 million and has room to spare at the highest estimate of 55 million - of itself, and bearing in mind this may involve some circularity, it suggests a population of about 47 million.)  Xerxes appears to have been the first Achaemenid monarch to want to put such a huge force in the field for conquest (his predecessors had been content with, or limited to, numbers in the hundreds of thousands) - and, after what happened to it and to him, he was the last.  Future full mobilisations approaching this scale occurred only in defence against an invader.

On the psychological front, had Greek historians harboured an endemic exaggeration complex, one might expect later Achaemenid armies to be recorded as being even larger than Xerxes'.  This is not in fact the case.

[Flaminpig0]

On the psychological front, had Greek historians harboured an endemic exaggeration complex, one might expect later Achaemenid armies to be recorded as being even larger than Xerxes'.  This is not in fact the case.

Possibly because they realised that Herodotus's numbers were absurd?

[Justin Swanton]

On the psychological front, had Greek historians harboured an endemic exaggeration complex, one might expect later Achaemenid armies to be recorded as being even larger than Xerxes'.  This is not in fact the case.

Possibly because they realised that Herodotus's numbers were absurd?

And didn't say so?

[Flaminpig0]

On the psychological front, had Greek historians harboured an endemic exaggeration complex, one might expect later Achaemenid armies to be recorded as being even larger than Xerxes'.  This is not in fact the case.

Possibly because they realised that Herodotus's numbers were absurd?

And didn't say so?

Possibly because they weren't commenting directly on Herodotus or Xerxes but on another topic.?

There is a question that does occur and that is if we take the numbers in these sources as accurate just how large would a Persian army need to be to beat the  Greeks or Macedonians?

[Patrick Waterson]

There is a question that does occur and that is if we take the numbers in these sources as accurate just how large would a Persian army need to be to beat the  Greeks or Macedonians?

Mardonius reckoned 300,000 - the best 300,000 in Xerxes' army.  He almost succeeded, too: following a couple of standoffs against the Greek army which resulted in neither side committing to battle, he successfully harassed them with his cavalry to the point where they felt compelled to shift base.  It was when he mistakenly thought they were fleeing instead of repositioning and brought his army out in pursuit without even waiting to don armour that he ran into terminal trouble.

Which Macedonians are we considering here?  The 480 BC variety who had already become Achaemenid subjects and hence were already 'beaten' or Alexander's army?  If the latter, the answer is 100,000 crack troops, consisting of 30,000 Greek mercenaries and the best 70,000 Achaemenid troops, as proposed by Charidemus in 333 BC.  Darius III hedged his bets and brought 600,000 to Issus with the Greek mercenaries, but deployed them in such a way as to give Alexander a quick route to the royal chariot via the kardakes.  It is not just numbers but generalship which needs to be considered.

Xerxes thought that with his army he would not even need to fight anyone.  In Herodotus VII.101 he asks Demaratus:

"So tell me: will the Greeks offer battle and oppose me? I think that even if all the Greeks and all the men of the western lands were assembled together, they are not powerful enough to withstand my attack, unless they are united."

Demaratus politely points out that the Spartans will fight against any odds.  Xerxes does not believe him.

"Let us look at it with all reasonableness: how could a thousand, or ten thousand, or even fifty thousand men, if they are all equally free and not under the rule of one man, withstand so great an army as mine? If you Greeks are five thousand, we still would be more than a thousand to one. If they were under the rule of one man according to our custom, they might out of fear of him become better than they naturally are, and under compulsion of the lash they might go against greater numbers of inferior men; but if they are allowed to go free they would do neither. I myself think that even if they were equal in numbers it would be hard for the Greeks to fight just against the Persians." - Herodotus VII.103

In 496-494 BC the Persians had successfully suppressed the Ionian revolt.  How different could the mainland Greeks be?  (Xerxes found out at Thermopylae.)

On the psychological front, had Greek historians harboured an endemic exaggeration complex, one might expect later Achaemenid armies to be recorded as being even larger than Xerxes'.  This is not in fact the case.

Possibly because they realised that Herodotus's numbers were absurd?

This would be the death-knell of the idea that Greek historians suffered from an endemic compulsion to exaggerate Achaemenid numbers - now they are being accused of accuracy!  And if it can be admitted or even suggested that they wrote the truth about Achaemenid numbers, why not Herodotus also?

[Flaminpig0]

This would be the death-knell of the idea that Greek historians suffered from an endemic compulsion to exaggerate Achaemenid numbers - now they are being accused of accuracy!  And if it can be admitted or even suggested that they wrote the truth about Achaemenid numbers, why not Herodotus also?

Stop being so silly!

[Justin Swanton]

This would be the death-knell of the idea that Greek historians suffered from an endemic compulsion to exaggerate Achaemenid numbers - now they are being accused of accuracy!  And if it can be admitted or even suggested that they wrote the truth about Achaemenid numbers, why not Herodotus also?

Stop being so silly!

Eh?

If there's anything in Patrick's line of argument that seems silly feel free to point it out. It would be interesting to read your refutation of his point.

[Patrick Waterson]

Indeed, I look forward to Ian's reasoned argument.

[Mark G]

More irony, the two who refute science calling for reason...

[Duncan Head]

Is this thread still going?  Are you trying to overtake "Currently Reading" as our longest thread?

[Patrick Waterson]

Is this thread still going?  Are you trying to overtake "Currently Reading" as our longest thread?

Not much chance of that, methinks; 'Currently Reading' will last as long as there are books (and members).  I think this thread will happily settle for second place.

[Andreas Johansson]

Things like the Persepolis Fortification and Treasury archives suggest that they had a developed bureaucracy very much on Mesopotamian lines. The use of Elamite, particularly, indicates that the homeland of Persis/Parsa itself was at least partially a Near Eastern bureaucratic society. But this administration was in the service of an Iranian warrior aristocracy, and it is not entirely clear (to me, at least) how far into the hinterlands of the Empire the bureaucratic habit penetrated.

This post was brought to my mind by something I read the other day: it turns out that Elamite administrative tablets have been found in Achaemenid Kandahar.