As a spin-off from the discussion of numbers of Xerxes army, here is a question relating to the persian fleet.
Herodotus gives as the number of Persian triremes 1207. This figure is held as proof that Herodotus knew Aeschylus' play The Persians because Aeschylus says
But Xerxes, this I know, had under his command a thousand, while those excelling in speed were twice a hundred, and seven more. lines 331-2
I've seen several interpretations of this line. It can be read as giving a total of 1207 triremes including 207 speedy ones, of 1000 triremes and 207 vessels of another type or, in one case, 1000 ships, of which 207 are especially speedy.
Could any of our Greek speakers check the Greek for me and see whether the interpretation is clear in the original?
Are you sure 331-332 are the right lines? I looked up The Persians at Perseus Project and what they have for those lines doesn't seem to match at all.
Sorry Andreas. It should be 341-2. Its because the translation page is headed 331 (where it starts).
Thanks; that one fits. My Greek isn't up to judging quite how the numbers should be interpreted.
Reading through the Greek, it seems to be ambiguous.
Herodotus breaks down the Persian triremes by nationality:
Phoenicians and Syrians - 300
Egyptians - 200
Cyprians - 150
Cilicians - 100
Pamphylians - 100
Lycians - 50
Dorians - 30
Carians - 70
Ionians - 100
Islanders - 17
Aeolians - 60
Pontus - 100
Which gives 1277 ships which is 70 ships over his initial total of 1207. Does he account for the extra 70 ships?
This sort of totalling error is not uncommon in the classical period, vide Diodorus' totals at Paraitakene.
Aeschylus' Greek reads:
Xerxē de, kai gar oida, khilias men ēn
hōn ēge plēthos, hai d' huperkopoi takhei
hekaton dis ēsan hepta
A literal (and somewhat banal) translation would read:
Xerxe de = Xerxes, on the other hand
kai gar oida = and this I know
khilias men ēn hōn ēge plēthos = a thousand indeed in his great number;
hai d' huperkopoi takhei = and overstepping all bounds in speed
hekaton dis ēsan hepta = two hundred and seven
Richard can probably refine this.
The sense of this passage is 1,000 standard and 207 fast vessels. From the fact they are not differentiated from the preceding Greek ships one can assume all are triremes or close equivalents in fighting power.
Thank you Patrick. The translation ends in the word "more" which I couldn't see in your more literal working. This would certainly explain why some include the 207 in the thousand and others don't.
I did leave out th': after hepta: th': (from te) has the sense of 'both' or 'also' and that I think is where the 'more' comes from. Apologies for having overlooked it.
1000 ships, merchants and transports 30 men a ship? 30,000 men 277 warships 200 men a ship 60 thousand men total 80- 100 thousand men. That's the sort of number of ships I would associate with the force that ferried William the Conqueror ( 700 ships) It doesn!t really chime with an army of a million. The individual figures are believable , especially if its a breakdown of 1000 transports and 207 or 277 warships.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on April 27, 2018, 06:56:44 PM
1000 ships, merchants and transports 30 men a ship? 30,000 men 277 warships 200 men a ship 60 thousand men total 80- 100 thousand men. That's the sort of number of ships I would associate with the force that ferried William the Conqueror ( 700 ships) It doesn!t really chime with an army of a million. The individual figures are believable , especially if its a breakdown of 1000 transports and 207 or 277 warships.
Roy
seems a reasonable number to me
Quote from: aligern on April 27, 2018, 06:56:44 PM
1000 ships, merchants and transports 30 men a ship? 30,000 men 277 warships 200 men a ship 60 thousand men total 80- 100 thousand men. That's the sort of number of ships I would associate with the force that ferried William the Conqueror ( 700 ships) It doesn!t really chime with an army of a million. The individual figures are believable , especially if its a breakdown of 1000 transports and 207 or 277 warships.
Actually the 1,207 are all warships, and are in addition to the 674 warships used to create the bridges across the Hellespont.
For supporting vessels, Herodotus (VII.97) gives the figure of 3,000. He identifies these as triakonters, pentekonters, kerkouroi (cornships) and, interestingly, hippogoga (horse-transports); whether the latter were actually transporting horses or conveying materials he does not state. One is tempted to wonder if they had a beach-landing role for delivering supplies.
We may note that this fleet did not 'ferry' Xerxes' army, which makes the comparison a bit skewed, but the ability of a small early mediaeval power to field 700 or more ships is a helpful reminder that 4,207 is not difficult to accept for a mighty empire. The ability of these ships to convey supplies for an army several millions strong (including noncombatants, and Herodotus lists the ship crews as part of the total) has been discussed elsewhere, and the only persistent objection was a belief that the fleet could not unload sufficient supplies over beaches.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on April 28, 2018, 08:17:28 AM
For supporting vessels, Herodotus (VII.97) gives the figure of 3,000. He identifies these as triakonters, pentekonters, kerkouroi (cornships) and, interestingly, hippogoga (horse-transports);
The ships of thirty and of fifty oars, the light galleys, and the great transports for horses came to a total of three thousand all together. Herodotus VII. 97.1
I presume the word translated "light galley" is that Patrick translates as "cornship". I had originally seen it as an emphasis on what went before.
Incidentally, when Herodotus works out the crews of the ships of these 5,000, he counts them all as penteconters with 30 marines. Essentially, he doesn't envisage them primarily as transports.
On numbers here, I think the trireme numbers have the potential to be accurate. Whether Aeschylus originated it, or whether it was the traditional Athenian figure, it was clearly in circulation amongst veterans of Salamis and a physical count of hundreds of ships is simpler than hordes of men. The 3000 ships I am less confident in - it could be a generic "lots", especially as he doesn't itemise it.
As to make up and operation of the "sealift command" of the Persian forces, a quick visit to the other thread will show that Patrick and I have totally different views of the practicalities of operating supply ships over beaches :) We haven't really looked at fleet operations in the campaign, though - we've concentrated on the army.
In VII.97 Herodotus explicitly uses 'kerkouroi' (corn-ships) as part of the 3,000. Translating this as 'light galleys' looks like extraordinary carelessness, but there may be a reason, if an incorrect one.
When he gets to VII.184 Herodotus designates these vessels as 'pentekonters', an evident mistake, but perhaps the source of the 'light galleys' translation if the translator was backtracking to apply consistency at the expense of accuracy. We do get the incidental information that a pentekonter of the period had an 80-strong crew, presumably 50 rowers and 30 fighting men (or less than 30 plus some sailors), so the mistake is not entirely wasteful. It does however mean that Herodotus has overestimated the total of naval personnel by 240,000 and hence total personnel by 480,000, bringing his estimated overall total down to 5,043,220.
In VII.186 the ships from VII.97 are added back in as 'sitagōgoisi akatoisi' (light corn-ships) and 'ploiosi' (vessels), but not numbered. They are part of Herodotus' conjectural addition of one non-combatant per combatant.
Quote from: Erpingham on April 28, 2018, 08:58:19 AM
As to make up and operation of the "sealift command" of the Persian forces, a quick visit to the other thread will show that Patrick and I have totally different views of the practicalities of operating supply ships over beaches :) We haven't really looked at fleet operations in the campaign, though - we've concentrated on the army.
Whatever the real or apparent difficulties, the triakonters and pentekonters would seem ideal for ferrying loads to the beach, unloading quickly (their large crews being a distinct asset for this) and going back for another round, while the horse-transports, with their loading ramps, have interesting possibilities for unloading cargoes directly onto beaches swiftly and with style. So we can at least say that the accompanying fleet is very well configured for naval supply of a large army. Whether we can put any figures to this is another question.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on April 28, 2018, 07:54:49 PM
In VII.97 Herodotus explicitly uses 'kerkouroi' (corn-ships) as part of the 3,000. Translating this as 'light galleys' looks like extraordinary carelessness, but there may be a reason, if an incorrect one.
I have tried to contemplate the pentaconter as a corn ship. If you left the marines off you'd make a start, and it might even be possible to strip out alternate oarsmen. As a way of running grain into the harbour of a town under siege it might make sense. Of moving grain from a harbour to a beach a day's journey away, again I could see it. (Or even beach to beach)
But you still have to beach to sleep etc and if you have too few oarsmen you'd struggle to push the damned thing back in the water :-[
So I suspect you're right, it's probably an error
Agreed, Jim, and for the reasons you give. :)
I would think the penetekonter is better off ferrying stuff from a proper corn-ship, maybe dumping its marines on the beach first to lighten the ship and act as a shore party to help with unloading. (They need not restrict themselves to unloading their particular pentekonter when it arrives, but coulds busy themselves with whichever one happens to be to hand.) Triakonters could do much the same thing in much the same way, with a smaller load and faster turn-around time.
But you are asking men to do things they do not normally do and crucially to transship at sea from one type of ship to another and then to unliad on a beach. That has as much credibility as invading the UK with Rhine barges. Are the corn ships the same height as the ships they transfer the cargo to? Is there a methodology for moving the loads?
When ships run the blockade to deliver relief to a besieged town they are delivering to a dock and to a team of people that regularly unloads ships, that has a command structure and is used to handling the cargo. Akso, the cargo cannot just be dumped on a shore, it has to be moved inland to a distribution point. Again, doing this with one ir two ships is relatively easy, but scale up and there will be real problems. Your imaginings do not encompass the delays, the accidents ( remember the US attempt to res ue the Iran hostages where their helicopters hit each other. A sudden squall would cause chaos.
I would like to echo Erpingham's caveats about just in time systems, which struggle even with modern logistics. There is a lot of friction in war, as armies get bigger logistical needs increase logarithmically rather than arithmetically. Just seeming ly small things such as which ships are delivering which contingent's grain? It will not work to have the Immortals queuing for their rations whist the Caspians are stuffing themselves. What happens when the galleys with horse feed get behind those with human rations whilst the cavalry have moved to the distribution point and are waiting. The response that the Persians could have adopted this or that expedient just dies not wash, if you were to supply stuff by sea then you need considerable redundancy in the system to ensure that all the friction does not cause the army to grind to a halt.
The big argument against having huge armies in the ancient period is that where we have reasonable numbers they are not on such a huge scale, even where the state concerned has the trained military manpower to field a huge force and that's most likely because the difficulties of supply are just too great. The killer is that the transport animals need feeding and, as has been pointed out several times the incremental amount that can be carried by each additional animal for consumption by the soldiery is tiny.
Just finding the men to do the work would be a huge oroblem. Ancient societies on subsustence agriculture are limited in the number of non producing mouths they can sustain. To have a million soldiers and another million in logistical tail then you have to be supporting that numberof non productive males ( and their families) plus you are not going to have any less priests, merchants, administrators.nobles etc. The soldiers and carriers cannot simply be magicked up, nor can their weapons armour, horses and draught animals. Where do all these donkeys come from? Is the rest of the Empire to be ungarrisoned? What happens to policing, tax collecting and repelling invaders whilst two million men are wasting their time in Greece? Just saying that the great king can command this and that and it will happen is naive, the great king's writ is not as wide and all seeing as Herodotus might think. Again there is considerable friction between an idea in Persepolis and an action in the Cilician mountains. In fact , in Anatolia, there are whole areas that do not obey the alleged imperial government whether Persian or Roman.
Had Xerxes disposed of the impossible million soldiers he could have used them rather more wisely by running ten huge armies of 100,000 and simply appearing before the top ten non medising Greek cities and taking them. Instead he runs off leaving one army in situ and taking another home. If we buy the idea of Mycake then he has a third, not in great numbers, on the returning ships. Nothing in the outcome of the campaign suggests that the army was huge other than in proportion to its likely opponents.
Roy
Perhaps a warning about not blurring the two Xerxes topics? If we look at the shipping side only, Patrick strongly believes that ancient transport fleets stood off and transfered cargo by lighter when unloading across beaches. I don't think so far he has shown his evidence for this.
It had occurred to me what a fleet with what Herodotus was envisaging as predominently made up of small warships was doing with them. They could be inshore transports, but then why the marine contingents? Your rowers will give you more than enough labour. That they were an inshore squadron, coasting along with the army and restocking at the various depots in Greece, which are supplied by what we've come to term the "conveyor" - a shuttle bulk grain service running out of Asia Minor - is possible. Their cargo capacity would be small (under 10 tonnes, maybe just 2 or 3) but if they are just operating as an adjunct to the supply train they could be useful.
Another possibility is that they are fleet auxiliaries. So far, little thought has been given to naval operations in the other thread. We have noted on one occassion, the persians pulled their triremes out of the water to dry out. We have noted on another occassion, the triremes rode at anchor off the beach - a very risky situation presumably forced on them by a lack of beach space. But the daily beaching/provisioning/watering cycles associated with galley warfare haven't really been discussed. So, perhaps, the light ship fleet was associated with provisioning the fleet?
Correction : I've done a bit more research on penteconters and, in particular, their dual purpose use in carrying people and cargo as well as as warships. It is thought a penteconter may have been able to carry fifty passengers on top of its crew or, crucially, 30-50 cubic metres of cargo. So our Herodotan penteconters might have carried 12-20 cubic metres of stores with 30 marines. If this was grain, that's 8-14 tonnes ( less if using amphorae).
Quote from: Erpingham on April 29, 2018, 10:52:24 AM
I've done a bit more research on penteconters and, in particular, their dual purpose use in carrying people and cargo as well as as warships. It is thought a penteconter may have been able to carry fifty passengers on top of its crew or, crucially, 30-50 cubic metres of cargo. So our Herodotan penteconters might have carried 12-20 cubic metres of stores with 30 marines. If this was grain, that's 8-14 tonnes ( less if using amphorae).
Interesting. As mentioned, if the pentekonters' marines are debarked onto the beach before any cargo is loaded for the day, they can take more cargo (at least 30 people's worth, perhaps doubling the given estimate)
and have a 30-strong landing party on shore to help with unloading. Or, if the corn-ships had minimal crews, the marines could be placed on board for the duration of the transfer to provide manpower to shift amphorae. Or some of both. Given the extensive experience of maritime peoples of the East Med, I would assume they would operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.
I do not know why Roy sees a problem with this happening on a large scale. It is not really a 'just in time' system so much as a 'take a day out' system. The only time during the march to Thermopylae when the fleet and army were out of touch for several days was when the army was marching through Macedonia, to meet the fleet at Thermum (near Thermopylae). Is there any good reason why the fleet would not have arrived before the army, unloaded a week's supplies at leisure (even taking a few days if it desired, there being no great urgency prior to the army's arrival) and then waited for the army while the empty corn-ships, perhaps with empty amphorae, went back to Asia Minor for a refill?
The fleet of triakonters and pentekonters would presumably service only as many corn-ships as were needed to deliver supplies for that instalment, working a few ships until they were empty before starting on the next. Cargo transfer might involve any number of techniques from using yardarms as cranes to cable transfer systems to simply handing amphorae down from the corn-ship to the pentekonter. We can actually put some basic figures forward for the overall process.
If we look at a system where two pentekonters service a single corn ship, one of them coud put its marines on board and the other its marines on the beach. This gives balanced loading and unloading parties and if we rate the cargo of a corn ship at 50 tons (probably an underestimate) then at, say, 15 tons per pentekonter (perhaps a bit less for the sake of optimising time and effort) it only takes four pentekonter-loads to clear one corn-ship, i.e. two trips by each pentekonter, then it is on to the next corn ship. Say one hour to empty each ship. This involves 30 men on the ship plus any crew moving 50 tons in one hour - about 1.7 tons per man per half-hour , the other half of that time being spent in transit between ship and shore. Hence each man is moving 33 hundredweight in 30 minutes, about one hundredweight (or amphora) per minute per man involved, with 50 men in the pentekonter helping to receive and stow the loads. Such figures are speculative but if reasonable give us a rule of thumb by which two pentekonters empty a small corn ship and deliver its load to the beaches in about an hour.
With, say, 600 pentekonters it would not take long to unload 300 corn ships, beach size permitting. Beach size would in fact appear to be the limiting factor with regard to unloading capacity. With one pentekonter loading at the corn ship and the other unloading at the beach only half the pentekonters involved need ot use the beach at any one time, and if the loading/unloading cycles of alternate ships are offset this can be halved again. Having 200 pentekonters taking three times as long would empty the same number of corn ships. This is still only three hours.
Yes, a squall would cause problems but squalls are not common in the western Aegean in the spring and summer. The prevailing northerly winds were known and everyone would have taken them into account for cross-Aegean journeys. Beach-landing was well practised (unlike WW2) because everyone was used to beaching ships; also well-practised was loading and unloading of vessels inside and outside ports. The main consideration for large-scale activity is large-scale organisation, and the Persians were not strangers to large-scale maritime expeditions (
vide Marathon).
Quite an excursus from Herodotus there Patrick :) A couple of points of clarification. Roy didn't invent the "just in time approach". That was originally advocated by yourself and Justin in the other thread. Personally, I think using your grain fleet to stock depots, given the army something of a buffer, is the way to go and it seems we agree. I continue to disagree on the weather in the Aegean - you treat the Etesian winds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etesian) very lightly. I doubt the Persian fleet did.
QuoteBeach-landing was well practised (unlike WW2) because everyone was used to beaching ships; also well-practised was loading and unloading of vessels inside and outside ports. The main consideration for large-scale activity is large-scale organisation, and the Persians were not strangers to large-scale maritime expeditions (vide Marathon).
An interesting take on the problem. Beaching galleys at night and the occassional merchant ship beaching to trade with the locals doesn't really scale up to WWII style operations does it? As to the Persian operation at Marathon, this suffers the same issues of how big the force was as Xerxes' expedition. Even ancient estimates all come in under 600,000 (most less than half that), compared with the force you propose for Xerxes of aroung 5.5 million, so its a huge scale up for fleet operations.
While I find your detailed beach operations ideas interesting but highly speculative and possibly a bit impractical (was it based on WWII practice using landing craft to ferry stuff ashore, or do you have something more period as a model?)
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on April 28, 2018, 07:54:49 PM
In VII.97 Herodotus explicitly uses 'kerkouroi' (corn-ships) as part of the 3,000. Translating this as 'light galleys' looks like extraordinary carelessness, but there may be a reason, if an incorrect one.
Quote from: LSJκέρκουρ-ος (proparox.) or κερκοῦρος , ὁ,
A.light vessel, boat, esp. of the Cyprians, Hdt.7.97, cf. Din.Fr.12.2, Moschio ap. Ath.5.208e, D.S.24.1 (pl.); used for Nile transport, PCair.Zen.54.3 (iii B.C.), etc.:—written κέρκυρος (as if from Κέρκυρα) Sch.Ar.Pax 142; κέρκυρα (pl.) Suid. s.v. Ναξιουργὴς κάνθαρος.
Certainly Hellenistic Egyptian kerkouroi were used as grain-transports on the Nile (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0JlCbXYt4kwC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=kerkouroi&source=bl&ots=TLFpgfCRbj&sig=JK6rS6IUsrmENqI_-KE1aFlnqrE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJrcqJwuHaAhXCVRQKHZ8cDHcQ6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=kerkouroi&f=false).
Quote from: Pliny NH VII.57Hippus, the Tyrian, was the first who invented merchant-ships; the Cyrenians, the pinnace; the Phœnicians, the passage—Boat; the Rhodians, the skiff; and the Cypriots, the cercurus.
It looks as if
kerkouros may have been used for two separate types of vessel - Cypriot vessels that may have been light galleys, and big Hellenistic grain-ships. Which meaning Herodotos intended is not clear; but translating "kerkouroi" as "light galleys" seems to be straight out of the lexica.
Thanks Duncan, that does make sense. So, these are oared merchant vessels. At the time, the Cypriot version does seem to be the more likely than the later Nile barges and the translator could well be correct. They will fit very well with the more generic triaconters and penteconters. Do we assume that horse transports follow the later model of converted triremes or is there a special type being refered to here?
Certainly, the idea that the 3,000 are oared and beachable as opposed to deeper water vessels seems to be meant. If the naval conveyor of hundreds of merchant ships existed, it is outside this fleet.
Quote from: Erpingham on April 30, 2018, 08:21:24 AM
An interesting take on the problem. Beaching galleys at night and the occassional merchant ship beaching to trade with the locals doesn't really scale up to WWII style operations does it? As to the Persian operation at Marathon, this suffers the same issues of how big the force was as Xerxes' expedition. Even ancient estimates all come in under 600,000 (most less than half that), compared with the force you propose for Xerxes of aroung 5.5 million, so its a huge scale up for fleet operations.
A couple of points here. Xerxes' army did not arrive by amphibious invasion, whereas the 490 BC force did, both at Eretria and Marathon. Directly landing a force of 600,000 or so combatants and associated hangers-on is at least as much of a maritime achievement as supplying a force of 2.5 million or so combatants and associated hangers-on via a combination of beaches and coastal cities.
I would avoid making comparisons with WW2-style operations. These were carried out against defended beaches, usually under fire, and follow-up supply efforts were subject to interdiction and harassment by sea and air. Xerxes' maritime supply operations took place in a setting of absolute naval superiority and no harassment whatsoever. There really is no comparison.
QuoteWhile I find your detailed beach operations ideas interesting but highly speculative and possibly a bit impractical (was it based on WWII practice using landing craft to ferry stuff ashore, or do you have something more period as a model?)
General principles, really: if there is a parallel using a period we know, that period would be the 18th-19th century and the agency the Royal Navy, which moved a lot of troops and supplies overseas, and the customary method of landing anything and anyone was to lower it (or them) into boats and put it (or them) ashore. This was especially easy in the Mediterranean, e.g. at Aboukir in AD 1801.
Caesar used a different approach in his invasions of Britain, pulling his fleet (and any supplies it contained) up onto the beach and building a protective palisade around it. This was the fruit of hard-won experience of British weather, which was routinely much less forgiving than the relatively mild and predictable Etesian Winds.
Quote from: Erpingham on April 30, 2018, 09:17:38 AM
Thanks Duncan, that does make sense. So, these are oared merchant vessels. At the time, the Cypriot version does seem to be the more likely than the later Nile barges and the translator could well be correct. They will fit very well with the more generic triaconters and penteconters. Do we assume that horse transports follow the later model of converted triremes or is there a special type being refered to here?
Certainly, the idea that the 3,000 are oared and beachable as opposed to deeper water vessels seems to be meant. If the naval conveyor of hundreds of merchant ships existed, it is outside this fleet.
Well hunted, Duncan; this does raise the intriguing possibility that Herodotus' maritime mathematical mistake is not in VII.184, as I previously assumed, but in VII.97, where he has 3,000 kerkouroi, pentekonters, triakonters etc. but not the "companies of the grain-bearing craft" (tōn sitagōgōn ploiōn kai hosoi enepleon toutoisi) which are added in VII.184. These are presumably the 'naval conveyor of hundreds of merchant ships'.
Horse-transports of this period may have been a distinct (and less seaworthy) type. In the very same year (480 BC), the Carthaginians launched their 300,000-man invasion of Sicily,
en route losing all their horse trnasports but no other ships in a storm. (This loss of mounted assets was the reason for their subsequent defeat by Gelo of Syracuse.) The horse-transports, it seems, had some distinctive design peculiarity which was not weather-friendly. (I assumed it to be ramps, which would be sealed for the transit but could be unsealed by strong wave action.)
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on April 30, 2018, 09:35:02 AM
Quote from: Erpingham on April 30, 2018, 08:21:24 AM
A couple of points here. Xerxes' army did not arrive by amphibious invasion, whereas the 490 BC force did, both at Eretria and Marathon. Directly landing a force of 600,000 or so combatants and associated hangers-on is at least as much of a maritime achievement as supplying a force of 2.5 million or so combatants and associated hangers-on via a combination of beaches and coastal cities.
But the 600,000 (is there a mention of additional hangers on?) is still plagued by the same "unreliable figures" problem as the 2.5 million (with 2-2.5 milion hangers on). Whether the two operations are an equivalent achievement regardless of numbers is another debate.
Quote
I would avoid making comparisons with WW2-style operations. These were carried out against defended beaches, usually under fire, and follow-up supply efforts were subject to interdiction and harassment by sea and air. Xerxes' maritime supply operations took place in a setting of absolute naval superiority and no harassment whatsoever. There really is no comparison.
It was you who introduced a WWII comparison. They aren't strictly comparable. In WWII, they had specialist equipment on an industrial scale and used hugely more seaworthy craft. Ammunition, fuel and equipment were a much bigger component of supply than in Xerxes' day. They also dealt with smaller forces than that proposed for Xerxes. So in many ways, it was easier. Some things didn't change though - weather was a real problem
Quote
General principles, really: if there is a parallel using a period we know, that period would be the 18th-19th century and the agency the Royal Navy, which moved a lot of troops and supplies overseas, and the customary method of landing anything and anyone was to lower it (or them) into boats and put it (or them) ashore. This was especially easy in the Mediterranean, e.g. at Aboukir in AD 1801.
But the Royal Navy wasn't operating beachable ships, so they were bound to use ferrying if they didn't have a port. This seems a false comparison.
Quote
Caesar used a different approach in his invasions of Britain, pulling his fleet (and any supplies it contained) up onto the beach and building a protective palisade around it. This was the fruit of hard-won experience of British weather, which was routinely much less forgiving than the relatively mild and predictable Etesian Winds.
Why didn't the Persians do this, I wonder? It's the sort of thing their naval contingents would have recognised, having experience of beaching warships at night.
Quote from: Erpingham on April 30, 2018, 10:23:42 AM
Why didn't the Persians do this, I wonder? It's the sort of thing their naval contingents would have recognised, having experience of beaching warships at night.
When you read the accounts of some of the naval campaigns fought between Athens and Sparta, especially for control of the Bosporus, one serious issue is finding enough beach space to beach a fleet of galleys
Suitable beaches may not necessarily be where you want them, the Persian fleet was definitely larger that the later Greek fleet. A trireme is about 6m wide, but obviously you have to add the oars to that because the minute a trireme hits the water it gets a lot larger so to be safe I'd suggest 18m per ship. So they don't clash oars when they get in the water if some of the crews are a bit casual
So even 300 ships are going to need five to six kilometers of beach.
Given headlands, currents, reefs and shoals, good beaches are going to be trick to find, so I can see the Persians being forced to keep boats in the water
QuoteSo even 300 ships are going to need five to six kilometers of beach.
And we also have the small galley fleet (the 3000), which will also need beaching at least some of the time.
If you don't beach the triremes, you run a medium term risk of waterlogging and, of course, wrecking. More acute is the issue about the crew. The crew would need to go ashore to collect food and fresh water regularly - triremes had very little stowage space.
How well we can assess beach availability I'm not sure. Patrick has noted extensive coast line changes.
Quote from: Erpingham on April 30, 2018, 12:08:44 PM
QuoteSo even 300 ships are going to need five to six kilometers of beach.
And we also have the small galley fleet (the 3000), which will also need beaching at least some of the time.
If you don't beach the triremes, you run a medium term risk of waterlogging and, of course, wrecking. More acute is the issue about the crew. The crew would need to go ashore to collect food and fresh water regularly - triremes had very little stowage space.
How well we can assess beach availability I'm not sure. Patrick has noted extensive coast line changes.
Yes, I'd say that if we know that ships didn't beach every night, it would be the sign of a very large fleet, for all the reasons you've given. Whether you could 'get away' with squadrons beaching alternate nights, I don't know. It would be 'suboptimal' to say the least.
Quote from: Jim Webster on April 30, 2018, 12:34:01 PM
Yes, I'd say that if we know that ships didn't beach every night, it would be the sign of a very large fleet, for all the reasons you've given. Whether you could 'get away' with squadrons beaching alternate nights, I don't know. It would be 'suboptimal' to say the least.
When they arrived off Thermopylae, the Persians arranged their fleet as follows:
"The Persian fleet put to sea and reached the beach of the Magnesian land, between the city of Casthanaea and the headland of Sepia. The first ships to arrive moored close to land, with the others after them at anchor; since the beach was not large, they lay at anchor in rows eight ships deep out into the sea." - Herodotus VII.188.1
Nobody even beached; were they leaving the beaches free for unloading operations?
Back at the time of the review at Doriscus, the Persians had beached their ships and indeed had made sure they dried out properly. Might this have been an indication they thought facilities for future beaching might be limited?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on April 30, 2018, 09:35:02 AM
I would avoid making comparisons with WW2-style operations. These were carried out against defended beaches, usually under fire, and follow-up supply efforts were subject to interdiction and harassment by sea and air. Xerxes' maritime supply operations took place in a setting of absolute naval superiority and no harassment whatsoever. There really is no comparison.
In the initial stages this might be true but the large supply efforts took place after the enemy had been cleared back from the beaches and in the Middle East and Europe Axis naval and air interdiction was negligible- D -Day being the obvious example.
Quote from: Flaminpig0 on May 04, 2018, 03:44:44 AM
In the initial stages this might be true but the large supply efforts took place after the enemy had been cleared back from the beaches and in the Middle East and Europe Axis naval and air interdiction was negligible- D -Day being the obvious example.
I think the important point to consider here is that people are tempted to use the actual amphibious landings as the standard of comparison rather than (relatively) unimpeded beach supply. The actual landings involved suppression of defences (takes time), assembly of waves of landing craft (takes time), disruption by beach defences (reduces landing throughput), pinning down of debarked troops by beach defences (adds time to the whole process) and loss of incoming vessels to mines and obstacles (reduces landing throughput). Follow-up supply efforts over beaches (which you are invoking) usually involve masses of vehicles which could not be landed in the first wave plus the need to use cleared lanes through minefields and obstacles - somewhat constricting on throughput.
Contrast this with our Achaemenids happily boating ashore, transferring their loads to willing hands and going back again for another load. No obstacles, no mines, no constriction on the beaches, no masses of heavy internally-combusting vehicles, no visits by enemy raiders. Same planet, but a different world.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on May 04, 2018, 07:32:17 AM
Contrast this with our Achaemenids happily boating ashore, transferring their loads to willing hands and going back again for another load. No obstacles, no mines, no constriction on the beaches, no masses of heavy internally-combusting vehicles, no visits by enemy raiders. Same planet, but a different world.
No LCTs, no DUKWs, no Mulberries, no Red Ball express etc. Yes, its a different world. But even with all the huge technological advances, it was still difficult. You've already said WWII isn't a good comparison. But what we can take from it is over-beach supply is hard, even with ideal beaches, modern technology and a smaller army than you propose. And weather can really disrupt things, even with a far more sea worthy fleet and artificial harbours. Enough now on the WWII analogies?
Quote from: Erpingham on April 30, 2018, 10:23:42 AM
But the 600,000 (is there a mention of additional hangers on?) is still plagued by the same "unreliable figures" problem as the 2.5 million (with 2-2.5 milion hangers on). Whether the two operations are an equivalent achievement regardless of numbers is another debate.
The figures are only 'unreliable' if one adopts the
a priori aproach that they are deemed so. The point about the 490 BC Eretreia-Marathon campaign is that it was a maritime invasion by large forces mounted and sustained by sea whereas Xerxes' 480 BC invasion of Greece required the fleet only to safeguard supply, not to move masses of troops in addition.
Quote
It was you who introduced a WWII comparison. They aren't strictly comparable.
Then there should be no problem with avoiding comparing them. :) My point about WW2 operations is that they are a lot
less efficient than Achaemenid operations partly on account of the geography and meteorology but mainly because of all the technology and techniques developed in the intervening years and therefore we should not be surprised about Achaemenid maritime logistical capabilities apparently or even actually surpassing our own.
QuoteQuote
General principles, really: if there is a parallel using a period we know, that period would be the 18th-19th century and the agency the Royal Navy, which moved a lot of troops and supplies overseas, and the customary method of landing anything and anyone was to lower it (or them) into boats and put it (or them) ashore. This was especially easy in the Mediterranean, e.g. at Aboukir in AD 1801.
But the Royal Navy wasn't operating beachable ships, so they were bound to use ferrying if they didn't have a port. This seems a false comparison.
The point is that they found simple ferrying to be remarkably easy and efficient - in the Mediterranean. Tides - not a problem. Surf - not a problem.
QuoteQuoteCaesar used a different approach in his invasions of Britain, pulling his fleet (and any supplies it contained) up onto the beach and building a protective palisade around it. This was the fruit of hard-won experience of British weather, which was routinely much less forgiving than the relatively mild and predictable Etesian Winds.
Why didn't the Persians do this, I wonder? It's the sort of thing their naval contingents would have recognised, having experience of beaching warships at night.
Reason number one was that the fleet was simply too big to beach (hence presumably the preliminary thorough dry-out at Doriscus, when they had time and a beach - they knew they had a flotatious time ahead of them). Conjectural reason number two is that they anyway needed the beach space to offload supplies.
The Achaemenids were not unfamiliar with the approach Caesar used: they employed it at Mycale in 479 BC, although this was to protect their (surviving) fleet against the Greeks rather than the weather. Their fleet was of course somewhat smaller then and they did not have to reserve the whole beach for offloading supplies.
QuoteMy point about WW2 operations is that they are a lot less efficient than Achaemenid operations partly on account of the geography and meteorology but mainly because of all the technology and techniques developed in the intervening years and therefore we should not be surprised about Achaemenid maritime logistical capabilities apparently or even actually surpassing our own.
Without reference to Herodotus (whose account you are attempting to support), what evidence of the "Super Persians" is there? Why should we think that the Persians have superior logistical capacities than those of modern times?
Quote from: Erpingham on May 04, 2018, 07:50:52 AM
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on May 04, 2018, 07:32:17 AM
Contrast this with our Achaemenids happily boating ashore, transferring their loads to willing hands and going back again for another load. No obstacles, no mines, no constriction on the beaches, no masses of heavy internally-combusting vehicles, no visits by enemy raiders. Same planet, but a different world.
No LCTs, no DUKWs, no Mulberries, no Red Ball express etc. Yes, its a different world. But even with all the huge technological advances, it was still difficult. You've already said WWII isn't a good comparison. But what we can take from it is over-beach supply is hard, even with ideal beaches, modern technology and a smaller army than you propose. And weather can really disrupt things, even with a far more sea worthy fleet and artificial harbours. Enough now on the WWII analogies?
What the more efficient amphibious Persians didnt have
• Tinned food as well as effective preservatives
• Radios to help with direction and control of operations
• Radar
• Unified command structure
• Mapping
• Aerial reconnaissance
• A Staff college able to create doctrine based on studying several thousand years of amphibious operations
• World War one and more recent experience
• General literacy
• Common spoken language
• Ships and other craft not dependent on wind and rowing.
• Weather forcasting
QuoteThe point is that they found simple ferrying to be remarkably easy and efficient - in the Mediterranean. Tides - not a problem. Surf - not a problem.
Not knowing much about Aboukir Bay landings, I searched online and was lucky enough to find
British Expeditionary Warfare and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1793-1815 by Robert K. Sutcliffe, which has a case study of the landing arrangements for this battle (pp34-39). He gives no overall strength of the British expeditionary force but wikipedia numbers it at 17,500, 5132 were in the assault wave. It was calculated that the landing force would need 102 boat loads and would take 10 hours. One of the major problems faced was the swell, which delayed the landings by two days, and some troops were lost to the sea in addition to those to enemy fire. It took 10 days to offload the whole army and its supplies.
Even if we assume hugely more efficient Persian operations, consistently better quality and larger beaches and continuous good luck with the weather, it is hard to see how this method could really support an expeditionary force of nearly 20 times the size of the British expedition.
Yes, the Aboukir landings had to wait a couple of days, but when they went ahead those in charge were very impressed by the rapidity with which they landed their 5,000 men.
The unloding of artillery etc. I discounted as being not really applicable to the classical era. ;)
Quote from: Erpingham on May 04, 2018, 07:50:52 AM
But what we can take from it is over-beach supply is hard, even with ideal beaches, modern technology and a smaller army than you propose.
But how hard was it really for the Achaemenids across the Aegean? I am not sure how well WW2 beaches (and the 20th century caveats I mentioned earlier - 'modern technology' works both ways) can be considered indicative of classical difficulty levels.
QuoteAnd weather can really disrupt things, even with a far more sea worthy fleet and artificial harbours. Enough now on the WWII analogies?
Indeed. Weather could be a problem, but our accounts make it seem as if it was either fine or impossible with little in between. While it was fine, unloading operations appear to have preceeded with remarkable alacrity.
QuoteEven if we assume hugely more efficient Persian operations, consistently better quality and larger beaches and continuous good luck with the weather, it is hard to see how this method could really support an expeditionary force of nearly 20 times the size of the British expedition.
Classical period amphibious operations are rare, but what we have suggests the difficulties and perils of WW2 did not apply. Marathon one might wonder about, together with the earlier landing in Eretreia, but the Greeks in 479 BC happily landed their whole force at Mycale in short order (Herodotus IX.99: "...
the Greeks brought their ships to the land and, having disembarked, arrayed themselves for battle" sounds as if everyone was on the beach in a couple of hours).
What this suggests is that Greeks and Persians alike were not necessarily constrained by the problems we think up for them.
Now at the other end of Hellas, the Carthaginians were also trying to do a Xerxes, but the facts of geography meant they had to come entirely by sea. Over to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (XI.20):
"The Carthaginians, we recall,1 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.
He took three days to rest his soldiers and to repair the damage which the storm had inflicted on his ships, and then advanced together with his host against Himera, the fleet skirting the coast with him. And when he had arrived near the city we have just mentioned, he pitched two camps, the one for the army and the other for the naval force. All the warships he hauled up on land and threw about them a deep ditch and a wooden palisade, and he strengthened the camp of the army, which he placed so that it fronted the city, and prolonged so that it took in the area from the wall extending along the naval camp as far as the hills which overhung the city.
Speaking generally, he took control of the entire west side, after which he unloaded all the supplies from the cargo vessels and at once sent off all these boats, ordering them to bring grain and the other supplies from Libya and Sardinia."
Dionysius gives us no timings, but we at least get to see an outline of how the Phoenicians conducted a landing operation. Note that Hamilcar does not unload his supplies at a port, but near or at the scene of action where he is besieging Himera, hence across beaches. There seems to be no problem in getting the cargoes ashore expeditiously and then sending off the ships to various supply sources for a refill. This refill was presumably also intended for unloading over the beaches - and one imagines would have been thus discharged had not Gelo of Syracuse wiped out Hamilcar's army before it arrived.
One of the problems with this is, of course, we have no idea of the actual numbers involved. There is no obvious reason to assume that the barbarians are not being inflated again. Even if we took this force at face value, it's still 15 times smaller than Herodotus' figure for Xerxes army.
We might note certain details -
*the ships are beached and the position fortified to create an operating base for the seige.
*There is no timescale for the unloading and I didn't find it clear whether they unloaded during the fortification work, splitting their labour, or after. The fleets labour could be relied on at this point, if only to build the camps.
*Fortunately, they were operating a fixed beach head, rather than beach hopping, which would have helped.
*They haven't set up a conveyor system - they have brought a lot of supplies at once then sailed off to collect/source a second load.
*They don't send for more horses, presumably because they lost the horse transports, rather than they had no reserves of horseflesh.
*Bad weather very nearly scuppered the expedition from the start
Anyone, thanks for raising this one, because it has some interesting details.
Finally, looking into this, I found this interesting report (https://archive.archaeology.org/1101/features/himera.html)
To play devils' advocate; is there any reason not to believe that Aeschylus was using poetic license with his numbers for the Persian fleet?
Quote from: Flaminpig0 on May 05, 2018, 04:25:36 PM
To play devils' advocate; is there any reason not to believe that Aeschylus was using poetic license with his numbers for the Persian fleet?
Well, Herodotus uses the figure 1207 triremes. One reading of Aeschylus is that he says the persians had 1207 triremes. This can't be a coincidence - Herodotus is presumably using Aeschylus as a source. Aeschylus could be using dramatist's licence, of course :)
If we look at Ctesias figures, he has 1000 triremes (the alternative reading of Aeschylus) but he also has 3,000 light galleys, like Herodotus. Either Ctesias has used Herodotus as a source (but if so, why alter the number of triremes?) or there is an independent basis, now lost to us, for the 3,000 galleys. Again, there is no reason why the 3,000 is accurate, just that its not unique.
Quote from: Erpingham on May 05, 2018, 08:56:02 AM
One of the problems with this is, of course, we have no idea of the actual numbers involved. There is no obvious reason to assume that the barbarians are not being inflated again. Even if we took this force at face value, it's still 15 times smaller than Herodotus' figure for Xerxes army.
Which leads one to wonder: if inflation had been the order of the day, why limit them to 300,000? It would surely be much more dramatic to have, say, three million or so.
QuoteFinally, looking into this, I found this interesting report (https://archive.archaeology.org/1101/features/himera.html)
Thanks for this: it does have some promising aspects.
"
Studying Himera's dead is also revealing the gruesome realities of ancient warfare. Initial analysis shows that some men suffered impact trauma to their skulls, while the bones of others display evidence of sword cuts and arrow strikes. In several cases, soldiers were buried with iron spearheads lodged in their bodies. One man still carries the weapon that killed him stuck between his vertebrae. Analysis of the types and locations of these injuries may help determine whether the men fell in hand-to-hand combat or in an exchange of missiles, while advancing or in flight. The arrowheads and spearheads uncovered with the men can also provide other important evidence. Ancient soldiers typically employed the distinctive weapons of their home regions, so archaeologists may be able to discover who killed the men buried at Himera by studying the projectiles embedded in their remains."
Nice to see archaeologists thinking in terms of weapons and tactics.
As a variation on the thread title theme, it might be interesting to note the number of Persian ships at Salamis according to Herodotus. The slick answer, is, of course, none: the Persians fielded no vessels, and the navy consisted of Egyptians, Cyprians, Cilicians, Pamphylians etc. but it is intriguing to note that Herodotus does not venture a figure for the Achaemenid fleet.