07-18-2012, 05:10 AM
Quote:Macedon I can reply to your recent comment tomorrow but I worked this up when you posted.
When analyzing the information we have on Herodot, his account comes from later sources such as Nepos, Pausanias, and Suda so an analysis of them would be necessary here. I forgot to mention in our logistical calculations that it is totally possible Persian divisions weren't at full strength due to previous engagements at e.g. seiging the Eretrians. At Thermopylae, Leonidas had his Phocians occupy the pass but they were very soft and the Persians could easily exploit them.
What do you mean by his account coming from later sources? Herodot's work is not lost. The numbers Herodot mentions are those supposedly crossing the Hellespont. Attrition, logistical difficulties later met, garrisons left or strengthened in Thrace, Macedonia and/or Thessaly etc would certainly have thinned the numbers a little but I cannot say how much. Again, ASSUMING (and not agreeing -why do I feel obliged to keep repeating that?-) that Herodot's numbers are correct to just have something as a basis, it would be no wonder if less than 80% of the initial train reached Thessaly. (About a mil less than those initially on the march).
Quote:Tracking back a few years to Marathon, Herodotus claimed that the Athenians ran 200 meters to engage the Persian lines, although such a charge with the amount of equipment on the hoplites is hard to envision. Is it really possible for soldiers carrying 50lbs of weight to cross 1 mile at a speed of 4.5m/h and be in a condition to fight?
Not 200 m, about 1,500 m. 4.5km/h might have been possible, more certainly not. There is no chance that any troops, no matter how disciplined or hardy they are, can actually RUN such a distance and reach their target battle ready and in relatively orderly. 4.5 km/h, a slow, orderly run is not that problematic. I have "run" much longer distances at such speeds with comparable loads after 1-2 months of hard military training, so I do not see how problematic that would be for the bulk of the ancients. Yet, a full run (as some might claim) over a one mile distance is, to me, a total absurdity.
Quote:“In Peter Krentz's reconstruction, the reason why the Athenians run was to deny the Persians the opportunity to properly deploy their cavalry, which if intercepted them in the middle of the plain would turn them into sitting ducks for the archers. If the Persian cavalry camped in the valley of Trikorinthos near the lake, as Hammond and Leake have suggested, it would have taken at least an hour for them to cross the narrow road between Mt Stavrokoraki and the Makaria spring (as an indication in single file with only 5 seconds per horse to pass the spring, a cavalry force of just 600 would have taken 50 minutes to ride through the chokepoint). Miltiades could have easily observed how much time it took for the Persians to array themselves in battle order in the several days of lull before the battle.
To me there is no way for the Persians to have posted their cavalry at a position from which it would be impossible to co-operate with the infantry. It sounds much more probable to me that they did not use their cavalry because there was no room to. The plain is not wide and the Greeks deliberately extended their line "to match that of the Persians". A fully extended line with psiloi and some heavy infantry in irregular bands at the foot of the hills and the marshes or the coast would be enough to make cavalry action more problematic than helpful. Do not forget that we do not actually know much about where exactly the lines deployed and with what facing.
Quote:As for the Persian archery, the Athenians could have halted just outside range of Persian bowshot (maximum 200m) to catch their breath and then charge as fast as they could to minimise their exposure. Even in Herodotus' acount the order of the Athenian phalanx seems to have evaporated by the time they crashed on the Persians: they arrived all together (athrooi), not necessarily in orderly fashion.”
True, although order was crucial to hoplite warfare. Aristophanes in the Wasps describes the Athenians fighting an orderly battle (man by man), Herodot does not give more details. I personally do not see them sacrifice order, which actually also protected them from missiles (disordered opponents are much more vulnerable to mass missile discharge). To fend off missiles you don't only want to shorten the exposure but also keep as tight and protected by shieldwall as possible.
