05-31-2005, 11:48 PM
The discrepancy between Plutarch and Herodotus for the Greek casualties is indicative of the problem of numbers. Herodotus gives specific numbers for some Greeks, totalling 160; I don't recall the relative numbers of soldiers from each city-state, but I will estimate the total (in line with the numbers given) might be 1,000. Plutarch gives a nice round figure of 60,300!
This underscores the fundamental problem of taking Herodotus' size for Xerxes' army and then trying to "rationalize" it. If you took Plutarch as a starting point, the calculations are rather different.
The scholarly estimates of Xerxes' army do disagree. But they all agree that the number of soldiers was somewhere at or less than 150,000, and the average and median figures are going to be roughly 100,000. (without doing the math?!).
This underscores the fundamental problem of taking Herodotus' size for Xerxes' army and then trying to "rationalize" it. If you took Plutarch as a starting point, the calculations are rather different.
The scholarly estimates of Xerxes' army do disagree. But they all agree that the number of soldiers was somewhere at or less than 150,000, and the average and median figures are going to be roughly 100,000. (without doing the math?!).
Felix Wang
