Marathon 490 BC
Greeks: Miltiades and nine other Athenian leaders with 9,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans (Nepos).
Persians: Hippias* with a Persian and Persian subject contingent of indeterminate size (possibly 60,000) carried in a fleet of originally 600 triremes (Herodotus)
*Datis and Artaphernes were the expedition leaders, but see Commentary below.
(Other sources: Datis with 100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry in 500 ships (Nepos). The poet Simonides reckons 200,000, Plutarch, Pausanias and the Suda 300,000, Plato and Lysias 500,000 and Justinus 600,000. 60,000 appears to be the most popular modern estimate among scholars who do not try to write the number down to 18,000 or less.)
Principal source: Herodotus VI.101-116 (battle description VI.111-114) Tr. A D Godley
Additional sources: Plutarch, Life of Aristides, chapter 5
Cornelius Nepos, Life of Miltiades, chapters 4-5
Byzantine Suda (10th century lexicon)
Herodotus VI.101-116 [battle description in 110-114 is in bold for those who wish to skip the preliminaries]
101. So they saved themselves by crossing over to Oropus; the Persians sailed holding their course for Temenos and Choereae and Aegilea, all in Eretrian territory. Landing at these places, they immediately unloaded their horses and made preparation to attack their enemies. [2] The Eretrians had no intention of coming out and fighting; all their care was to guard their walls if they could, since it was the prevailing counsel not to leave the city. The walls were strongly attacked, and for six days many fell on both sides; but on the seventh two Eretrians of repute, Euphorbus son of Alcimachus and Philagrus son of Cineas, betrayed the city to the Persians. [3] They entered the city and plundered and burnt the temples, in revenge for the temples that were burnt at Sardis; moreover, they enslaved the townspeople, according to Darius' command.
102. After subduing Eretria, the Persians waited a few days and then sailed away to the land of Attica, pressing ahead in expectation of doing to the Athenians exactly what they had done to the Eretrians. Marathon was the place in Attica most suitable for riding horses and closest to Eretria, so Hippias son of Pisistratus led them there.
103. When the Athenians learned this, they too marched out to Marathon, with ten generals leading them. The tenth was Miltiades ... [Miltiades' family history occupies the rest of this chapter and is omitted here]
104. It was this Miltiades who was now the Athenian general, after coming from the Chersonese and escaping a two-fold death. The Phoenicians pursued him as far as Imbros, considering it of great importance to catch him and bring him to the king. [2] He escaped from them, but when he reached his own country and thought he was safe, then his enemies met him. They brought him to court and prosecuted him for tyranny in the Chersonese, but he was acquitted and appointed Athenian general, chosen by the people.
105. [omitted - a chat between Philippides the runner and the god Pan]
106. This Philippides was in Sparta on the day after leaving the city of Athens, that time when he was sent by the generals and said that Pan had appeared to him. He came to the magistrates and said, [2] "Lacedaemonians, the Athenians ask you to come to their aid and not allow the most ancient city among the Hellenes to fall into slavery at the hands of the foreigners. Even now Eretria has been enslaved, and Hellas has become weaker by an important city." [3] He told them what he had been ordered to say, and they resolved to send help to the Athenians, but they could not do this immediately, for they were unwilling to break the law. It was the ninth day of the rising month, and they said that on the ninth they could not go out to war until the moon's circle was full.
107. So they waited for the full moon, while the foreigners were led to Marathon by Hippias son of Pisistratus. The previous night Hippias had a dream in which he slept with his mother. [2] He supposed from the dream that he would return from exile to Athens, recover his rule, and end his days an old man in his own country. Thus he reckoned from the dream. Then as kategeomenos [leader] he unloaded the slaves from Eretria onto the island of the Styrians called Aegilia, and brought to anchor the ships that had put ashore at Marathon, then marshalled the foreigners who had disembarked onto land. [3] As he was tending to this, he happened to sneeze and cough more violently than usual. Since he was an elderly man, most of his teeth were loose, and he lost one of them by the force of his cough. It fell into the sand and he expended much effort in looking for it, but the tooth could not be found. [4] He groaned aloud and said to those standing by him: "This land is not ours and we will not be able to subdue it. My tooth holds whatever share of it was mine."
108. Hippias supposed that the dream had in this way come true. As the Athenians were marshalled in the precinct of Heracles, the Plataeans came to help them in full force. [The rest of the chapter explains how the Plataeans came under Athenian protection.]
109. The Athenian generals were of divided opinion, some advocating not fighting because they were too few to attack the army of the Medes; others, including Miltiades, advocating fighting. [2] Thus they were at odds, and the inferior plan prevailed. An eleventh man had a vote, chosen by lot to be polemarch of Athens, and by ancient custom the Athenians had made his vote of equal weight with the generals. Callimachus of Aphidnae was polemarch at this time. Miltiades approached him and said, [3] "Callimachus, it is now in your hands to enslave Athens or make her free, and thereby leave behind for all posterity a memorial such as not even Harmodius and Aristogeiton left. Now the Athenians have come to their greatest danger since they first came into being, and, if we surrender, it is clear what we will suffer when handed over to Hippias. But if the city prevails, it will take first place among Hellenic cities. [4] I will tell you how this can happen, and how the deciding voice on these matters has devolved upon you. The ten generals are of divided opinion, some urging to attack, others urging not to. [5] If we do not attack now, I expect that great strife will fall upon and shake the spirit of the Athenians, leading them to medize. But if we attack now, before anything unsound corrupts the Athenians, we can win the battle, if the gods are fair. [6] All this concerns and depends on you in this way: if you vote with me, your country will be free and your city the first in Hellas. But if you side with those eager to avoid battle, you will have the opposite to all the good things I enumerated."
110. By saying this Miltiades won over Callimachus. The polemarch's vote was counted in, and the decision to attack was resolved upon. Thereafter the generals who had voted to fight turned the presidency over to Miltiades as each one's day came in turn. He accepted the office but did not make an attack until it was his own day to preside.
111. When the presidency came round to him [Miltiades], he arrayed the Athenians for battle, with the polemarch Callimachus commanding the right wing, since it was then the Athenian custom for the polemarch to hold the right wing. He led, and the other tribes were numbered out in succession next to each other. The Plataeans were marshalled last, holding the left wing. [2] Ever since that battle, when the Athenians are conducting sacrifices at the festivals every fourth year, the Athenian herald prays for good things for the Athenians and Plataeans together. [3] As the Athenians were marshalled at Marathon, it happened that their line of battle was as long as the line of the Medes. The centre, where the line was weakest, was only a few ranks deep, but each wing was strong in numbers.
112. When they had been set in order and the sacrifices were favourable, the Athenians were sent forth and charged the foreigners at a run. The space between the armies was no less than eight stadia. [2] The Persians saw them running to attack and prepared to receive them, thinking the Athenians absolutely crazy, since they saw how few of them there were and that they ran up so fast without either cavalry or archers. [3] So the foreigners imagined, but when the Athenians all together fell upon the foreigners they fought in a way worthy of record. These are the first Hellenes whom we know of to use running against the enemy. They are also the first to endure looking at Median dress and men wearing it, for up until then just hearing the name of the Medes caused the Hellenes to panic.
113. They fought a long time at Marathon. In the centre of the line the foreigners prevailed, where the Persians and Sacae were arrayed. The foreigners prevailed there and broke through in pursuit inland, but on each wing the Athenians and Plataeans prevailed. [2] In victory they let the routed foreigners flee, and brought the wings together to fight those who had broken through the centre. The Athenians prevailed, then followed the fleeing Persians and struck them down. When they reached the sea they demanded fire and laid hold of the Persian ships.
114. In this labour Callimachus the polemarch was slain, a brave man, and of the generals Stesilaus son of Thrasylaus died. Cynegirus son of Euphorion fell there, his hand cut off with an axe as he grabbed a ship's figurehead. Many other famous Athenians also fell there.
115. In this way the Athenians overpowered seven ships. The foreigners pushed off with the rest, picked up the Eretrian slaves from the island where they had left them, and sailed around Sunium hoping to reach the city before the Athenians. There was an accusation at Athens that they devised this by a plan of the Alcmaeonidae, who were said to have arranged to hold up a shield as a signal once the Persians were in their ships.
116. They sailed around Sunium, but the Athenians marched back to defend the city as fast as their feet could carry them and got there ahead of the foreigners. Coming from the sacred precinct of Heracles in Marathon, they pitched camp in the sacred precinct of Heracles in Cynosarges. The foreigners [barbaroi] lay at anchor off Phalerum, the Athenian naval port at that time. After riding anchor there, they sailed their ships back to Asia.
Commentary:
Marathon is a classic battle in which a small force of Greeks (10,000) overthrew a much larger Persian army (60,000?), setting a trend which was to endure thereafter with almost no exceptions. It reversed the previous trend by which Greeks (in the Ionian Revolt of 496-4 BC) usually lost against Persians, and set a new one which was confirmed at Plataea in 479 BC.
The reasons for the Greek success can perhaps be extracted from clues in Herodotus: the Greeks close with their opponents 'at a run' (dromo) and the Greek centre is thinned out ('oligos taxeis' means 'few formations' rather than 'few ranks deep', but the one suggests the other) and the wings 'strong in numbers', allowing them the depth, breadth or both to envelop and defeat the Persian wings. The Greek centre is crushed back, Herodotus' choice of words (rhexantes = bursting through; eidokon = drove or pursued) suggesting a collapse in that sector, but the Greek wings, having routed their opponents, changed direction to deal with the victorious Persians and Sacae, broke them and pursued them back to the ships (which were undoubtedly already filling up with routed subject nations). Interestingly, Herodotus says the heaviest Greek losses were suffered when they tried to seize the Persian ships, not when the centre broke. This suggests that the Greek centre was forced back by weight of numbers, but the Persian follow-up was slow and deliberate, allowing the victorious Greek wings to change direction and catch them.
Herodotus does not mention Datis and Artaphernes or their cavalry at Marathon, and Herodotus twice states (VI.102 and VI.107) that Hippias led (kategeeto) the force sent to Marathon. Plutarch is less precise, assuming that Datis himself 'put in' to Marathon, and he also denies the Persians any breakthrough in the centre, merely allowing them to 'hold out longest' there. Nepos has Datis present with 10,000 cavalry and 100,000 infantry (100,000 of Nepos' original force are not accounted for, presumably elsewhere, suggesting he had an inkling that part of the Persian force had remained behind at Eretria), and states that the Athenians were ten times outnumbered.
Herodotus provides a vital clue for understanding who actually commanded at Marathon: in VI.107, Hippias "marshalled the foreigners who had disembarked onto land," which would normally be the duty of the man actually in charge. Combining this with Herodotus' complete absence of mention of Datis, Artaphernes or Persian cavalry at the battle and mention of Hippias as the 'kategomenos' ordering the unloading of Eretrian slaves onto an island gives a picture of the force defeated at Marathon as being an infantry-only contingent under Hippias while the Persian commanders and their remaining strength (including the cavalry) were still at Eretria.
The Byzantine Suda supports Herodotus in confirming the lack of Persian cavalry, and that the Athenians attacked once they became aware of this. Herodotus and the Suda appear to be preferable in this respect to Plutarch and Nepos. Marathon makes sense as an infantry battle, and was the first battle unequivocally won by Greeks against Persians (previous engagements in Asia Minor had not gone well for the Greeks there). A key tactical point mentioned by Herodotus was that the Athenians were the first to close with the enemy at a run – thus maximising their impact at contact and setting the trend for later hoplite battles. His phrasing suggests - but does not require - that the Greeks closed the entire eight stadia distance at a run, the key point seeming to be that they charged at a run into the foe.
Herodotus appears to be the most detailed and honest reporter of our sources: he does not estimate the size of the Persian forces, though he gives detailed casualties (192 Greeks and around 6,400 barbarians) in VI.117. Only Herodotus reports the Athenian centre as giving way; Nepos makes no mention of this, and Plutarch merely allows the Persians in the centre to 'hold their ground the longest'.
One can infer from Herodotus' account that Datis, Artaphernes and the Persian cavalry were still at Eretreia when Marathon was fought. This makes sense on a number of counts: Hippias, sent on to secure a landing-site, would have been waiting for the Persian commanders before proceeding; the Persian force at Marathon would have been less than the full contingent that had set forth on its mission of conquest, and the absence of any mention in any source of Persian cavalry scouting or raiding is consistent with their absence. It may be asked why the absence of Persian cavalry was not immediately apparent to the Athenians, and this might be explained by the presence of mounted officers among the Persians, which may also be the reason for the depiction of a mounted man in the painting in the Stoa Poikile building, which is held to have been a contemporary representation of the battle.
Concerning the aftermath: the commander of the Persian forces was a quick thinker, and sought to retrieve his defeat by a swift voyage to Athens, hoping to find it bereft of defenders. This is consistent with a Greek who knew the city and the locality being in charge of operations: Persian commanders were not known for swift initiative. While only indicative, it is perfectly in accord with Hippias being in command of the Marathon force.
Worth a look: the Battle of Marathon entry in the New World Encyclopaedia:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Battle_of_Marathon (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Battle_of_Marathon)
File Name: Marathon 490BC
File Submitted: August 3, 2012, 3:43:40 AM
Battle of Marathon 490BC (Persian Wars)
Click here to download this file (http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?action=dldir;sa=details;lid=19)
Some members will be aware that the current fashion in scholarly circles is to turn this battle through 90 degrees and have both armies drawn up with one flank on the shore - this is a passing fancy which does not accord with source descriptions. The map given here (taken from Edward Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World) seems accurate in its essentials and, most importantly, in the armies' dispositions and their relationship to the shoreline.
Patrick
Patrick, have you any sage thoughts on the length of the lines against the distance on the ground and the impact of that on deployment depth??
That is to say, how many Persians/ Greeks are there?/
Roy
Thoughts, certainly: not so sure about 'sage'. ;)
Given 10,000 Greeks (hoplites) in total, and assuming a standard 8-deep deployment, we would have a 1,250-yard (over 2/3 mile) frontage. Miltiades reinforced his wings at the expense of the centre, and the general assumption is that the one balanced out the other, leaving the frontage at around 1,250 yards. Creasy's map suggests the Persians would have outflanked the Greeks, but this is one thing Militades would have wished to avoid at all costs, and Herodotus (VI.111) specifically states:
As the Athenians were marshalled at Marathon, it happened that their line of battle was as long as the line of the Medes. The centre, where the line was weakest, was only a few ranks deep [literally: 'had only a few formations'], but each wing was strong in numbers.
The impression Herodotus' account gives is that the Greeks were greatly outnumbered.
The Persians saw them running to attack and prepared to receive them, thinking the Athenians absolutely crazy, since they saw how few of them there were (Herodotus VI.112)
Given equal frontages, this implies considerable Persian depth. Just how considerable is a matter for judgement and taste, but given the Persian proclivity for fives and tens, one suspects a multiple of ten or fifty. If we have a frontage of 1,200 yards, and one man per yard of frontage, then ten men deep gives 12,000 - which is not greatly outnumbering the Athenians - and fifty deep gives 60,000, which does. 30,000 or 40,000 or even 50,000 may be possible, but my best guess would be 60,000. The fleet that carried them was originally 600 triremes (Herodotus VI.95), and these were being used to transport the army so I would expect each ship was carrying rather more than the 30-40 used in battle as marines: an average of 100 men per ship seems not unreasonable in the circumstances. There were horses involved, too, and Herodotus does not specifically mention horse transports, but in Thucydides VI.43 the Athenian expedition to Sicily carried 7,150 men in 40 triremes, or about 178 infantry to a trireme - and one transport carried 30 horses: on this basis the 600 Persian triremes could have carried up to 106,800 men without horses, or 18,000 horses without men, so a force with 6,000 horses (using 200 triremes) - probably a high estimate for the cavalry contingent - and 71,200 men (using 400 triremes) is possible, although some triremes would presumably be acting as escorts, with only 30-40 soldiers on board.
Given these parameters, we can reasonably say that the Persian army at Marathon could have numbered between 50,000 and 70,000 men (although Datis, Artaphernes and the cavalry at least were still behind at Eretria) and 60,000 men or thereabouts conveniently fits a deployment 50 deep that matches (to within 50 yards) the estimated Greek frontage.
Patrick
60 000 does seem very high as a number for a naval expedition at that time.
your leap from a multiple of 10 men deep to a multiple of 50 men deep is quite a bold one.
I think we ought to look at the route as well. They weren't coasting, and the idea of having 100 extra men on a trireme, given the needs for water etc when you are not able to land every night would worry me
Jim
Yet for some reason it did not seem to worry the Athenians on their way to Syracuse, and they had nearly double that number of extra men on their transport triremes.
Patrick
What was the size of the fleet that transported Belisarius to Africa as that is an army whose size we can be reasonably confident about??
It is in Procopius.
Roy
Did those athenian triremes row all the way back to athens after depositing their cargo?
Or were the hoplites also the crew, and the triremes essentially a one way ticket (unintentionally, of course).
And can we therefore say the same about the Persians? (the slave owning - land loving Persians)
If the persian fleet was crewed by sailors and carrying soldiers, it presents an entirely different set of numbers from a fleet of soldiers who were expected to crew their own vessels at the same time.
(not to mention the question of whether the rowers were 'bulking up' the back of the Persian fighting line to create an illusion of massive numbers of fighting men).
Is there any evidence to make a judgement on any of these questions either way?
Quote from: aligern on August 09, 2012, 12:16:23 AM
What was the size of the fleet that transported Belisarius to Africa as that is an army whose size we can be reasonably confident about??
It is in Procopius.
Roy
500 transports and 92 warships to transport 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry.
Given the size of the Persian fleet, 600 triremes and a few transports lost in the reporting, a Persian force of 10,000 plus infantry and a thousand cavalry seems entirely possible.
The big question is would Persian infantry be prepared to row, as Greek Hoplites would do at times. If they were prepared to row, and the fleet wasn't really expected to fight when the troops were ashore, then some of the infantry would be oarsmen.
But if the infantry were oarsmen, the fleet couldn't really sail when the troops were fighting, and a lot of ships would have surely been captured in the flight
Jim
Thanks for the Belisarian comparator Jim, I thought that the fleet size was comparable. I'd go for more than 10,000, more like15,000 with cavalry in the hundreds. After all, the Persians knew that the Greeks would have few cavalry.
I don't think that the Persian troops would row. I am under the impression that the list of troops in Herodotus is of comfiest land lubbers and that training an oarsman takes a considerable time.
Anyway, if the ship types compare then the persiAns do not outnumber the Athenians by much.
Roy
Quote from: Mark G on August 09, 2012, 08:57:22 AM
Did those athenian triremes row all the way back to athens after depositing their cargo?
Or were the hoplites also the crew, and the triremes essentially a one way ticket (unintentionally, of course).
And can we therefore say the same about the Persians? (the slave owning - land loving Persians)
If the persian fleet was crewed by sailors and carrying soldiers, it presents an entirely different set of numbers from a fleet of soldiers who were expected to crew their own vessels at the same time.
(not to mention the question of whether the rowers were 'bulking up' the back of the Persian fighting line to create an illusion of massive numbers of fighting men).
Is there any evidence to make a judgement on any of these questions either way?
The evidence, such as it is, is from Herodotus, from whom we get the figure of 600 triremes and the assertion that the Persians scorned the Athenian advance at Marathon
because they 'greatly outnumbered' the Athenians. If Herodotus is indeed the Herodotus son of Basilides mentioned in connection with the embassy visiting the Greek fleet prior to Mycale in 479 BC, he would have been in a position to pick up stories from the Persian side about Marathon, which would add weight to the evidential value of his comments.
The loading data for the Athenian expedition to Syracuse are taken from Thucydides, whom we regard as reliable, and the triremes of the late 5th century BC seem to have been pretty much the same as triremes of the early 5th century BC, so it seems reasonable to use them for 'ballpark' figures. For the record, the ships accompanying the Syracuse expedition stayed with it (and shared its fate) but were all committed to battle when required, indicating that their crews were not part of the infantry contingent, and the ships accompanying the Persian expedition of 490 BC also stayed with the troops they brought (and evacuated them back home after Marathon and a little detour to try the back door at Athens) but lost very few at Marathon, indicating that crews were available to man the ships as opposed to caught up in the fighting. To me, it seems eminently reasonable to draw direct comparisons, and to assume that basically similar loading practices were followed, so if 40 triremes can carry 7,000 soldiers from Athens to Syracuse, with a few stops along the way, then at least to my mind it follows that 400 triremes can carry 70,000 soldiers from Ionia to Marathon with a few stops along the way.
The crews would not be Persians, but would be Phoenicians, Cilicians, Lykians, Ionians and similar seafaring peoples (as per the later navy summoned by Xerxes when he got to 480 BC). The Persians and other landlubber troops would just sit back and enjoy the view.
The ships themselves were gathered in Cilicia and the Persian force initially embarked there before rebasing itself in Ionia (Herodotus VI.95). And contrary to my earlier mistaken statement that horse transports were not specified, in fact they are: Herodotus specifically mentions that Darius had the previous year commanded them to be made ready, and they were furnished. This may well allow more than 30 horses per vessel intended for the purpose, releasing more to carry infantry or allowing a higher proportion of cavalry. Given that the Greeks (of Greece as opposed to Ionia) had practically no navy at the time (Athens could only muster 20 galleys c.498 BC) the Persians would not have needed more than about 50 galleys (if that) in 'combat mode' as escorts, allowing the remainder to serve as transports.
So I stick with c.60,000 in the Persian army at Marathon.
Patrick
The problem is, your argument for 60,000 or thereabouts seems to hang on the phrase 'greatly outnumbered'.
This is an entirely subjective measure, and an army outnumbered 2:1 or even 1.5:1 can claim it was 'greatly outnumbered'.
If we take the Athenians as 11,000, then they could happily regard themselves as 'greatly outnumbered' if the Persians had 15,000 infantry and 1,000 horse. (Especially if they included in the Persian force the 100,000 plus oarsmen and sailors)
Jim
Quote from: Jim Webster on August 09, 2012, 02:32:59 PM
The problem is, your argument for 60,000 or thereabouts seems to hang on the phrase 'greatly outnumbered'.
This is an entirely subjective measure, and an army outnumbered 2:1 or even 1.5:1 can claim it was 'greatly outnumbered'.
If we take the Athenians as 11,000, then they could happily regard themselves as 'greatly outnumbered' if the Persians had 15,000 infantry and 1,000 horse. (Especially if they included in the Persian force the 100,000 plus oarsmen and sailors)
Jim
Actually it hangs on the carrying capacity of the Persian fleet. That the Persians (according to Herodotus) regarded themselves as greatly outnumbering the Greeks is
consistent with this Syracuse-expedition-derived carrying capacity but
not consistent with a force of 15,000 or so, who would not consider themselves to be 'greatly outnumbering' 10,000 hoplites. What the Persian officers would be judging by - as frontages were the same - was depth; they knew their own, and they could see what was coming at them. Would 15,000 men have thought an attack by 10,000 to be 'mad' because of the scale of the discrepancy - six ranks instead of four; twelve ranks instead of eight?
The problem with arguing from subjectivity is that it cuts both ways: let us boost the Persians to 120,000 or so: they still 'greatly outnumber' the Greeks, who would certainly regard themselves as 'greatly outnumbered'. This is why I tried to work out empirically what the fleet could/would have carried, and this gives us a figure of around 70,000 give or take a few cavalry, of which some (the cavalry and perhaps a few others) stayed behind with Datis and Artaphernes at Eretria while Hippias led the bulk of the army to Marathon (Herodotus VI.102 and 107 specify Hippias as being in charge of the Marathon force, indicating that Datis and Artaphernes were still looting Eretria at the time of the battle - which is consistent with the Byzantine Suda statement that the Persian cavalry were absent).
So everything still points to a Persian army of c.60,000 at Marathon.
Patrick
I have boosted the Persians to 120,000 or so. I've given them 100,000 oarsmen etc.
Remember, a force of 15,000 men who may well be experienced soldiers, are going to sneer at 11,000 city militia who've just been called up and are going to think they greatly outnumber them.
To get a force of 60,000 Persian troops you really need to show that the Persians were in the habit of doing what Greeks could and did do, ask their infantry to double up as Oarsmen.
Jim
Quote from: Jim Webster on August 09, 2012, 03:04:38 PM
To get a force of 60,000 Persian troops you really need to show that the Persians were in the habit of doing what Greeks could and did do, ask their infantry to double up as Oarsmen.
Jim
In a word, why?
Patrick
Sorry Patrick,
I posted it when being distracted by other things.
As far as I can see, we have 600 triremes and an unknown number of transports.
Now we know that we have horses to transport, and a trireme in Persian service probably carried 40 marines
Herodotus, VII.184.2
So your Marines alone, on 600 ships have potentially 24000 marines. (or replace the marines with 'ordinary infantry' to taste.)
The transports can carry horses.
So If we take the Belisarius figures, with a similar number of ships we can carry 15,000 men.
If we take Herodotus's figures for marines, we can have 24,000 infantry and a number of cavalry.
Both can be said to outnumber, even considerably outnumber 11,000 city militia infantry
I see no reason to go to 60,000 men
Jim
Thanks, Jim.
You are quite right about a trireme in Persian service carrying 40 marines, but this would be for sea fighting rather than transporting an army, would it not? I have in mind various illustrations of triremes in naval battles where we have a huddled collection of 30-40 chaps at one end of the ship and a vast emptiness for about 7/8 of the deck. Assuming you want to move an army rather than just disembark marines for land fighting, would it not make sense to cover a greater area of the deck with sprawled troops and sail a bit slower? It is not as if the Persians were expecting any serious naval opposition in 490 BC, so being in fighting trim for a naval battle was probably the least of their worries.
The infantry could be carried in addition to the marines, or the marines could be left off for greater carrying capacity (which seems logical if one is not expecting a sea fight). A certain amount of deck space would need to be left free around the mast for raising and lowering the sail, and crowding the steersmen is never a good idea, but about 4/5 of the deck could be used to transport men, so with about 2,000 square feet of deck that gives about 1600 square feet of usable sitting space (or more probably lying down or leaning over the edge feeling unwell space) and if we give each man 6'x1.5' (9 square feet) then by a coincidence that struck me as I was working it out just now we get 178 men per trireme, which is exactly what the Athenian Syracusan expedition worked out as having. Neat or what?
Patrick
Athenian ship sheds were 40 meters long and 6 meters wide
Assume a square ended ship just big enough to fit into the ship shed and that the entire thing was decked.
Assume an infantryman takes up 1 metre by 1 metre. Approximate 'at ease' spacing
Your 40 infantrymen would take up approximately 20% of the deck space. Give them room to lie down and that's 40% of the deck
Go back to having pointed ends and having to leave space for seamen to move about, allowing for the fact that we're not talking an aircraft carrier and it might to be totally decked 40 marines are going to take up a fair proportion of the deck
Look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7da52cJLwW8, there is a big gap right up the middle of the deck.
When you look at that ship, explaining exactly how you get 100 infantry on there without them rowing is problematic.
I don't think they're huddled at one end.
I don't think you've grasped the logistics of it all.
For a start, you put 100 infantry on top of the deck, even if they fit, you have screwed, utterly, the balance of the boat, she's suddenly deperately top heavy
Swapping marines for infantry is irrelevent, except that infantry might expect to carry more kit and get in the way more. It doesn't increase the number of men you can carry.
Indeed putting Persian infantry on instead of Marines would have the advantage of guaranteeing the loyalty of the ship.
Jim
I have to say, 24 000 does feel about right for this sort of expedition., which I can happily 'medise' to 25 000 to fit with the perferred numbering system if you want.
it also gives a hefty numerical advantage on its own, leaving out the separate boat crew who would have been identifyable *.
to put the command and control into perespective, 24-25000 is less than the Republican Roman consular pair of 4 legions.
It is important to stess that this expedition was not a massed call up with the King present and for which any old pair of arms brings more prestige - this is a specific military task force with a specific role.
I don't think Patricks numbers hang on 'outnumbered', rather I think they hang on the 7000 Athenians on 40 triremes -but I can only accept that number if it includes all the fighting men who disembarked having to crew the vessel to get there.
175 fully equipped hoplites hanging about on deck in all weather for a sea voyage of that distance looks like a disaster waiting to happen, and coincidentally, 170 seems to be the normal number of oarsmen for a trireme too.
Conversly, the Persians would have used sea faring subects to provide the vessels and crew, and it seems so much more logical and believable that they needed many extra boats to carry the same number of fighting men as an Athenian army which could do both tasks.
But we are back to the 'Million Men of Xerxes' argument again here, and I think the same sides are shaping up again with pretty much the same lines of argument too, so in the absence of anything else to change an opinion, I'll bow out at this point.
* - I am remined of a sceene in A Very British Coup, when the army displays Soviet vs Nato military strengths to argue for a retention of US nuclear weapons, and it is pointed out that the Soviet figures include cooks, drivers, HQ officers, medics, reservists etc, whilst the Nato numbers only count fighting men (and didn't include the French, who would hardly be bystanders in the event of a Soviet invasion).
Mark is being very gentlemanly here, so despite some reservations I shall leave his statements as they are and just add that the sides shaping up are essentially classical sources vs modern opinions.
I would however beg leave to question Jim's statement that putting 100+ men on the deck of a trireme is going to upset its balance: it will cause the vessel to ride lower in the water, but unless you add something like towers or a corvus this will not affect its inherent stability unless - and this is important - the men all crowd to one side and a big gust of wind hits the sail at the same time, which is anyway more likely to snap the mast or rend the sail of a trireme than to roll the ship over. The ram - large, heavy, below the waterline - is a great stabiliser and damper of load-induced movements (had the Mary Rose been built with a ram, it might still be with us today). Mediterranean mariners, particularly in galleys, anyway avoided bad weather rather than sail through it (when they guessed wrong they lost horse transports - as in the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily - or whole fleets, in the case of the Romans), the point being that they would not be at sea in anything but good weather, at least in the Aegean, with its numerous island refuges, if they could possibly help it. In any event, as I mentioned previously, the Athenians were able to take 7,150 men on 40 triremes from Athens to Sicily (with a few stops along the way), i.e. 178 extra men per ship, without this being a problem, so I do not see any question of potentially upset balance (or having a big gap in the middle of the deck) as being an argument against this troop capacity. Thucydides says it was done, and I think he was a sufficiently reliable source on which to base estimates. What we can do is guess how it was done, not (unless we have good evidence to the contrary) challenge that it was done.
The exact details of fitting 178 extra men onto the deck of a trireme must obviously remain conjectural. For what it is worth, I would suggest that the deck gap could be covered by removeable gratings (they have to be removeable to let the oarsmen in and out) if increased space is required, and that one does not need seamen moving about the deck - just a couple at the steering oars with the ship's officers, a few more to raise and lower the sail (which is basically up or down and not being continually adjusted) and maybe a few more - or the same men - to distribute water around at intervals.
Now I do take the point that the Persian expedition of 490 BC was not arranged by Athenians, but by the Persian Empire, but would ask where and how the Athenians orginally learned how to pack 178 men onto a trireme - did they work it out for themselves, or had someone done it before? The trireme of 490 BC seems to have been the same basic vessel as the trireme of 415 BC, so I think what works in 415 BC would work in 490 BC. Is there any reason to believe this would not be the case?
Patrick
Patrick
The obvious way to fit 178 men into a trireme is to put them on the rowing benches
As for the ram adding to stability, a ram, 200kg of bronze stuck on the front end, (the olympias) is not a keel. It will slightly reduce the centre of gravity but as a weight below the centre of gravity doesn't do more than counter 3 naked men above the centre of gravity, never mind 178.
I'd recommend anyone look at the video of the Olmpias I mentioned above. Look at how tightly packed the oarsmen are packed to get 170 of them in, involving three 'decks'
And then to expect to get 178 soldiers on the two parallel narrow flat decks above them is I feel stretching credibility.
If we assume that an infantryman, plus his kit, plus some stores, comes to 100kg, that is a total of 17.5 metric tons.
The weight of the Olympias in total is only given as 70 tons and if you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme
Weight distribution was so critical that the holes for the Thalamian oars are just above the waterline. So effectively the crew, probably another 17 tons are all above the centre of gravity (but as close to it as possible) and you'll wanting to sling another 17.5 tons on the top, as far from the centre of gravity as you can
Jim
A worthy set of observations, Jim. However ...
While the ram is not a keel, it remains a considerable stabilising force, and its position at the head of the ship actually multiplies its stabilising influence while the ship is moving (pressure from a greater volume of water per second and all that). Incidentally, I do not recall the Romans in the First Punic War having stability problems in battle with significant complements of legionaries and a corvus on deck. (Weathering storms off the south coast of Sicily was quite another matter.)
The centre of gravity will tend to get lower as the extra load puts the ship lower in the water (not sure exactly how the metacentric height would be affected, but basic principles suggest the ship actually becomes more stable as the two diverge). Now for a hypothesis on my part: I suspect that a trireme being used as a transport might well dispense with the lower deck of oarsmen because their oars could end up mainly in the water: a point against this supposition is that the Athenian ships that went to Syracuse all seem to have been employed in a combat role after unloading their troops, implying they took their entire complement of 170 rowers (the question then being whether the thalamites rowed - or sat idle during the voyage hoping the thranites had gone easy on the beans).
All in all, I suspect we tend to under-estimate what triremes did and could do. Unfortunately with the Greek financial situation as it is, I doubt that any suggestion that they try to see how many men dressed as hoplites can get on the deck of the Olympias would be favourably received.
That basically leaves us with Thucydides' description of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse as our best rule of thumb for the period.
Patrick
The Romans were using Quinqueremes, heavier ships, with 400 crew or thereabouts and designed to have up to 120 marines. And even they had major problems in storms
Jim
Indeed they did. Naturally, anyone with sense (which excluded several First Punic War Romans) stayed out of the way of storms or got ashore or into the lee of an island before they struck. Datis, Artaphernes and co. did not encounter any storms, and one would expect they chose their sailing times with this in mind (a later Persian fleet that tried to double Mount Athos did run into one and was not so happy, with or without masses of troops on board).
Essentially, a Mediterranean war galley of any flavour, loaded or not loaded, was pretty much at the mercy of a storm. The trick was to avoid storms in the first place.
Incidentally, Polybius (I.26) gives the crew of a quinquereme as 300 men (presumably 150 per side, 30 per oar bank). The Romans did indeed put 120 troops on each deck, as they had in Polybius' words: "made preparation for both eventualities, a seaborne battle and a land invasion," their troop allocation thus being something of a compromise, and presumably a useful upper figure for the number of men one could cram onto the deck of a quinquereme and expect to be able to fight in a naval action rather than the maximum number possible.
Patrick
I've been catching up on this interesting tale and was encouraged to go and look at my copy of Morrison & Coates the Athenian Trireme. A few key points bearing on the above :
- They believed triremes from Asia Minor were decked across, unlike Athenian ones, because they used boarding tactics
Top heaviness is, contra seen as a major issue. They quote Herodotus (8-118 1-4) an apocrophal tale of Xerxes having his entourage jump into the sea during a storm because they are making the ship top heavy. Herodotus thinks this is rubbish because Xerxes could just have ordered them below. Overloading was a risk, especially in bad weather.
Their commentary on ships of the earlier period suggest that a troop carrying fleet, as opposed to a battle fleet, could carry 40 armed men above normal crew. They concur on horse transports carrying 30 animals, stating these would be converted triremes using 60 oarsmen.
Interesting points, Antony (nice to have you joining this discussion, by the way).
The one about Herodotus VIII.118.1-4 is intriguing, because my rudimentary knowledge of naval architecture suggests that deck-loading a trireme will raise the metacentric height, making the ship more stable in normal conditions because the rate of roll is decreased but less stable in violent weather because the vessel is 'tender', which means if pushed beyond a certain angle of heel it is difficult to recover. The basic trireme configuration (deep-ish, narrow-ish, flattish-bottomed) makes for an inherently stable design.
This would suggest that overloading a trireme (if adding the calculated 178 men for 'trooping' was in fact an overload) would be dangerous only in bad weather - which was anyway very unfriendly to triremes.
Herodotus also points out that he believed that particular tale to be apocryphal because "the king, as I have already said, returned to Asia by the same route as the rest of the army" (VIII.119).
Do Messrs Morrison and Coates comment on Thucydides VI.43 (which has 7,150 troops being carried in 40 transport triremes)?
Patrick
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 11, 2012, 08:51:17 PM
Do Messrs Morrison and Coates comment on Thucydides VI.43 (which has 7,150 troops being carried in 40 transport triremes)?
Alas no, though they do quote enough of Thucydides to suggest most of the fleet were standard triremes, the presence on board of which of extra troops in action was a problem, affecting manoeuver. M&C believe the key issue was roll - the additional marines caused the ship to be unstable, interfering with effective use of the oars.
Your quote above now suggests that the 40 triremes were transports. If they were the 60 oared converted horse transports type, they would have had more capacity. The rule of thumb is a horse takes as much room as 5 men, I believe, so a 30 horse carrier would have room for 150 men, which isn't too much of a stretch to get to the figure needed.
Thucydides says that the Athenians had 134 'trieresi' (triremes) and two Rhodian 'pentekontorin' (pentekonters) on the expedition. He notes that touton Attikai men esan hekaton, the Athenian triremes numbered one hundred, hon hai men hexekonta takheiai, of these sixty were swift, i.e. in fighting order, hai d'allai stratiotides, the others were carrying troops. One notes the inference that the troop carriers were slower.
He does not draw any differences in construction between the troop-carrying triremes and the triremes in fighting order, and lumps them all together in one category (100 Athenian triremes), so it looks as if he understood them to be identical vessels fulfilling different roles rather than differently-built vessels.
The single horse transport (hippagogos - one has to love the dative, 'hippa-go-go') is listed separately.
Whether the forty triremes used as troop transports had a reduced rower complement is an unanswered question. I would suggest from the fact that every Athenian trireme at Syracuse seems to have been committed to battle when things got tough that the rower complements may not have been reduced, but this assumes that nobody was co-opted as temporary rowers. As you point out, if we assume 60 oarsmen per transport trireme (essentially one level of oarsmen) then much more space becomes available, and 150 men (a 30-horse equivalent) is not far from 178 (and men in close proximity do not bite each other - usually - so can perhaps pack a little closer). The key question that arose early in this thread is whether a Persian fleet of 600 triremes could have transported 60,000+ men, and one way or another the arithmetic is suggesting that they could.
Patrick
I'm afraid your grasp of naval architecture is a little weak Patrick
Triremes were shallow draught ships, rather than being "deep-ish, narrow-ish, flattish-bottomed" they are shallow, narrow and flat bottomed.
This is not an inherently sable configuration.
Remember they are very vulnerable to instability, because is the weight on top shifts (not a problem in a normal boat because virtually everyone sticks to their bench) then suddenly one line of oars might not bite the water and the boat starts to turn (three rows biting on one side, two on the other and you're heading in that direction)
It might well be that the Athenians had a number of triremes where the benches were hoplites enjoying the cruise, but the underlying issue is that you are postulating all sorts of ways for Persian fleets to carry inordinately large numbers of men, purely on the strength of them 'greatly outnumbering' 11,000 city militia at the far end.
Without carrying a man more than normal, they would have 24,000 fighting men on 600 ships which is greatly outnumbered enough for anyone. You don't need to postulate 50 or 60,000 persians
Jim
Quote from: Jim Webster on August 12, 2012, 01:26:01 PM
You don't need to postulate 50 or 60,000 persians
Jim
Oh, but I do. :) The problem with the 40-marines-per-ship-makes-up-the-army idea is that Herodotus VI.95 specifies a "
land army" (pezon straton) being embarked on board the fleet.
"
When these appointed generals on their way from the king reached the Aleian plain in Cilicia, bringing with them a great and well-furnished army, they camped there and were overtaken [epelthe = approached, joined]
by all the fleet that was assigned to each [i.e. levied from each contributing state]
; there also arrived the transports for horses, which in the previous year Darius had bidden his tributary subjects to make ready. [2] Having loaded the horses into these, and embarked the land army in the ships, they sailed to Ionia with six hundred triremes."
Patrick
No because all that has to happen is what the Carthaginians did. The fleet turns up without any marines per ship. Safe enough the far side of Cilicia.
Then the Land army is embarked, at the rate of 40 men per ship and it sails. The cavalry use the transports.
The Carthaginians did this in Sicily with Hamilcar's infantry acting instead of marines if memory serves.
"Great and well furnished" is a subjective term, certainly the 'well furnished' might be taken as meaning it wasn't all that big (as the really big armies had a lot of very poorly equipped troops in them)
This Hamilcar?
Now that we have described at sufficient length the events in Europe, we shall shift our narrative to the affairs of another people. The Carthaginians, we recall, had agreed with the Persians to subdue the Greeks of Sicily at the same time and had made preparations on a large scale of such materials as would be useful in carrying on a war. And when they had made everything ready, they chose for general Hamilcar, having selected him as the man who was held by them in the highest esteem. He assumed command of huge forces, both land and naval, and sailed forth from Carthage with an army of not less than three hundred thousand men and a fleet of over two hundred ships of war, not to mention many cargo ships for carrying supplies, numbering more than three thousand. Now as he was crossing the Libyan sea he encountered a storm and lost the vessels which were carrying the horses and chariots. And when he came to port in Sicily in the harbour of Panormus he remarked that he had finished the war; for he had been afraid that the sea would rescue the Siceliotes from the perils of the conflict. - Diodorus Siculus XI.20.1-2
The time period is right (5th century BC), but we lack loading data for men per ship. Reading Diodorus literally, we might suppose that Hamilcar put 300,000 men on 200 ships ...
Patrick
Great debate and very true to say that is essentially a matter of faith. Do we believe that ancient armies are in the 20,000 to 50,000 range or thay armies of 100, 300, 500,000 and more are feasible?
I am trying to remember how many Mem made up Trajan's Dacian expedition or any major Roman effort or any expedition that because we have the names, numbers or number of legions present, we can be reasonably confident of the numbers present?
For the avoidance of doubt , whilst in awe of the breadth of Patrick's scholarship I am firmly delbruckian about numbers.
Roy
No Hamilcar Barca, if not actually his army, that war. We have the better accounts for then. If I ever get time I'll find chapter and verse :-[
Jim
Found it
http://www.livius.org/ps-pz/punic_war/polybius_1_60.html#60
Book 1, chapter 60
[241 BCE] When the unexpected news reached Carthage that the Romans were at sea with a fleet and were again disputing the naval supremacy, they at once got their ships ready, and filling them with grain and other provisions, dispatched their fleet on its errand, desiring that the troops at Eryx should be in no need of necessary supplies. Hanno, whom they had appointed to command the naval force, set sail and reached the Holy Isle from whence he designed to cross as soon as possible to Eryx, unobserved by the enemy, and, after lightening the ships by disembarking the supplies, to take on board as marines the best qualified mercenaries together with [Hamilcar] Barca himself and then engage the enemy.
Jim
Chaps, would you care to update the ancient sources / battles portion of the wiki with these excerpts in full.
I rather gathered that was the intention of the area, and as these passages are fresh in your heads (and presumably freshly thumbed or cached in your reference material), it seems a shame to let the opportunity slip.
Quote from: aligern on August 12, 2012, 09:18:03 PM
Great debate and very true to say that is essentially a matter of faith. Do we believe that ancient armies are in the 20,000 to 50,000 range or thay armies of 100, 300, 500,000 and more are feasible?
Roy
Would it be fair to say faith on the one hand and sources on the other (at least until Hamilcar Barca enters the lists once Jim or I get hold of him)? Or perhaps faith in sources? ;)
I suspect we may need to open a new topic if we are going to revive the whole 'ancient numbers' question: meanwhile, Mark's suggestion is excellent. Should we make a specific 'naval transport' thread?
Patrick
I edited my post above to put Hamilcar in, so that he was nearer the scene of the action for people reading
Jim
You were ahead of me with that one, Jim.
Regettably all this demonstrates is that Hanno was putting on board the best troops he could find to serve as marines in a sea fight. (The battle in question is Aegusa, the last sea-battle of the First Punic War). The passage alas tells us nothing about triremes' ability to transport troops (as opposed to scrounging around for troops to serve as marines - in Polybius I.49 and I.51 Adherbal and Pulcher do the same for the battle at Drepana, in which the former wipes the ocean with the latter).
Still worth adding to a naval topic, though.
Patrick
Quote from: Mark G on August 13, 2012, 09:09:58 AM
Chaps, would you care to update the ancient sources / battles portion of the wiki with these excerpts in full.
I rather gathered that was the intention of the area, and as these passages are fresh in your heads (and presumably freshly thumbed or cached in your reference material), it seems a shame to let the opportunity slip.
Made a start with a new thread for Ships and Navies. http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=430.0 (http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=430.0)
Will copy relevant bits under various battles etc. sooner or later.
Thanks for the suggestion, Mark.
Patrick
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 13, 2012, 05:39:19 PM
You were ahead of me with that one, Jim.
Regettably all this demonstrates is that Hanno was putting on board the best troops he could find to serve as marines in a sea fight. (The battle in question is Aegusa, the last sea-battle of the First Punic War). The passage alas tells us nothing about triremes' ability to transport troops (as opposed to scrounging around for troops to serve as marines - in Polybius I.49 and I.51 Adherbal and Pulcher do the same for the battle at Drepana, in which the former wipes the ocean with the latter).
Still worth adding to a naval topic, though.
Patrick
what it shows it that ships could travel without marines but with stores loaded instead. It also shows that troops could be used as marines, but if they can be transported to a sea battle, they can also be transported to a land battle.
So it shows that it is not at all impossible for the Persians to have ships with rowers but no marines sent up the coast to Cilicia where they pick up troops who will act as Marines
Somewhere Herodotus says that the Persians added 30 Saca or Persian infantry to the Marine contingents before Salamis but I've not had time to find out when
Jim
I am no expert, but combining the conservative numbers of the Belisarian expedition with the capacities of triremes I feel that the big thing missing is the space for supplies. These soldiers are going to land in Greece which is bare and rocky in many areas and could have the water supply cut or poisoned and a scorched earth policy applied in front of the Persian army which would face the Greeks who would be on top of their supply bases. It looks to me as though a large logistical tail would be needed. No doubt there were man servants and much in the way of food/fodder/ tents/ supplies of arrows and javelins and cases of armour etc. that would take up a lot of space on the ships . The likelihood that men can be packed on deck like sardines exposed to the elements does not seem at all likely. They would suffer from exposure in any bad weather or even just strong sunshine for 12 hours a day as the glare at sea is intense with no shade.
Plus the rowers have to be fed and watered. They are more used to the elements, toughened, sinewy and all that, but they still need water/wine and food.
So IMHO lots of carrying capacity (and Jim is correct that it may be weight more than space that is the problem and restricted numbers of soldiers. 40 per ship but with 25% of shipping for horses would seem fair .
Roy
In the words of a famous Pompeiian character: The Prologue. This is the background to the Battle of Marathon, delineating the motivations for and background to the campaign as recorded by Herodotus. Points of interest in bold.
Herodotus VI.94-100
94. The Persian [i.e. King Darius] was going about his own business, for his servant was constantly reminding him to remember the Athenians, and the Pisistratidae were at his elbow maligning the Athenians; moreover, Darius desired to take this pretext for subduing all the men of Hellas who had not given him earth and water. [2] He dismissed from command Mardonius, who had fared so badly on his expedition, and appointed other generals to lead his armies against Athens and Eretria, Datis, a Mede by birth, and his own nephew Artaphrenes son of Artaphrenes; the order he gave them at their departure was to enslave Athens and Eretria and bring the slaves into his presence.
95. When these appointed generals on their way from the king reached the Aleian plain in Cilicia, bringing with them a great and well-furnished army, they camped there and were overtaken by all the fleet that was assigned to each; there also arrived the transports for horses, which in the previous year Darius had bidden his tributary subjects to make ready. [2] Having loaded the horses into these, and embarked the land army in the ships, they sailed to Ionia with six hundred triremes. From there they held their course not by the mainland and straight towards the Hellespont and Thrace, but setting forth from Samos they sailed by the Icarian sea and from island to island; this, to my thinking, was because they feared above all the voyage around Athos, seeing that in the previous year they had come to great disaster by holding their course that way; moreover, Naxos was still unconquered and constrained them.
96. When they approached Naxos from the Icarian sea and came to land (for it was Naxos which the Persians intended to attack first), the Naxians, remembering what had happened before, fled away to the mountains instead of waiting for them. The Persians enslaved all of them that they caught, and burnt their temples and their city. After doing this, they set sail for the other islands.
97. While they did this, the Delians also left Delos and fled away to Tenos. As his expedition was sailing landwards, Datis went on ahead and bade his fleet anchor not off Delos, but across the water off Rhenaea. Learning where the Delians were, he sent a herald to them with this proclamation: [2] "Holy men, why have you fled away, and so misjudged my intent? It is my own desire, and the king's command to me, to do no harm to the land where the two gods were born, neither to the land itself nor to its inhabitants. So return now to your homes and dwell on your island." He made this proclamation to the Delians, and then piled up three hundred talents of frankincense on the altar and burnt it.
98. After doing this, Datis sailed with his army against Eretria first, taking with him Ionians and Aeolians; and after he had put out from there, Delos was shaken by an earthquake, the first and last, as the Delians say, before my time. This portent was sent by heaven, as I suppose, to be an omen of the ills that were coming on the world. [2] For in three generations, that is, in the time of Darius son of Hystaspes and Xerxes son of Darius and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes,1 more ills happened to Hellas than in twenty generations before Darius; some coming from the Persians, some from the wars for preeminence among the chief of the nations themselves. [3] Thus it was no marvel that there should be an earthquake in Delos when there had been none before. Also there was an oracle concerning Delos, where it was written: "I will shake Delos, though unshaken before." In the Greek language these names have the following meanings: Darius is the Doer, Xerxes the Warrior, Artaxerxes the Great Warrior. The Greeks would rightly call the kings thus in their language.
99. Launching out to sea from Delos, the foreigners [Persians] put in at the islands and gathered an army from there, taking the sons of the islanders for hostages. [2] When in their voyage about the islands they put in at Carystos, the Carystians gave them no hostages and refused to join them against neighboring cities, meaning Eretria and Athens; the Persians besieged them and laid waste their land, until the Carystians too came over to their side.
100. When the Eretrians learned that the Persian expedition was sailing to attack them, they asked for help from the Athenians. The Athenians did not refuse the aid, but gave them for defenders the four thousand tenant farmers who held the land of the Chalcidian horse-breeders. But it seems that all the plans of the Eretrians were unsound; they sent to the Athenians for aid, but their counsels were divided. [2] Some of them planned to leave the city and make for the heights of Euboea; others plotted treason in hope of winning advantages from the Persians. [3] When Aeschines son of Nothon, a leading man in Eretria, learned of both designs, he told the Athenians who had come how matters stood, and asked them to depart to their own country so they would not perish like the rest. The Athenians followed Aeschines' advice.
Points to note on the Persian side are the authorisation of the expedition from the very top, the raising of a land army to be embarked upon the surprisingly large fleet, the advance preparation of horse transports and the curious lack of mention of any sort of storeship to carry supplies. One observes that Athenian assistance consisted of 'four thousand tenant farmers who held the land of the Chalcidian horse-breeders', probably the result of Miltiades' fiefing in the Chersonesus, but not a man or ship from Athens itself.
Patrick
Actually the Persians' first stop after leaving the Empire (they 'blitzed' Naxos and visited Delos en route) was Euboea, which back then was fertile and bountiful (it provided much of Athens' food supply during the Athenian Empire period). They made a fairly thorough job of stripping the place and then packed off Hippias and the bulk of the troops to Marathon. It is not as if they were preparing for a voyage to Africa with an estimated journey time reckoned in months. ;)
Herodotus does not detail the supply arrangements for this expedition, but it may be worth noting that Xerxes, with his huge army, still reckoned to live off supplies to be found in Greece (VIII.50) even after the 'visit' by Datis and Artaphernes ten years previously, although he was warned of likely supply problems by Artabanus (VIII.49) and admittedly hedged his bets with 'vast stores of provisions' (VIII.50) as a safeguard. To dismiss Greece as barren and incapable of supplying an army would be contrary both to then-contemporary thinking and to the experience of Mardonius, who maintained a very significant force over the winter of 480-479 on Greek (mainly Thessalian and Boeotian) resources.
The Athenian expedition to Syracuse was followed by 30 'ships' [sitagogoi = corn transports] with their supplies for six months plus all requisite materials for siege work and fortification and 100 'boats' [ploia = merchantmen] (Thuc VI.44). This was of course because they thought the campaign might take six months with little or no chance to resupply.
We can argue until the ocurrence of bovine redomiciliation about how troops were carried on triremes, and how many per ship, but Thucydides VI.43 effectively puts 178 men on each trireme used as a transport, and I am not particularly concerned whether we can explain how it was done, rather that it was done and thus can serve as a yardstick for troop transportation by triremes in the Mediterranean. Antony's overt (and Jim's implicit) suggestion that they would have reduced crews while acting as transports is one I find not unreasonable.
Patrick