Persian Invasion of 480 BC - articles

[Robert Vermaat]

When I say literary sources are totally unreliable I only apply that to the figures given by those sources for armies.

Ah, that's a lot better. Maybe say so in future, eh? But still I have issues with that word 'totally'. :x

1) whenever I find a literary source and a documentary one (muster and pay rolls) for the size of an army, the literary source has given a grossly inflated figure. I could give you a good number of examples from medieval times and later, unfortunately we don´t have that level of documentary sources for Ancient times

You mean a poet? For I strongly deny that a chronist or a historian as a rule grossly inflates army size. That's just not true. For instance, Ammianus, Zosimus, Procopius - there's differences in their estimates, but claims that they all grossly inflated army sizes is just bullocks. Again, many may have at some point in history, but that does not warrant wild claims like yours.
Yes, I'm a historian and such wild claims bother me. :x

Against this frame, fables about armies 1 million strong, or even 300.000 are just not realistic.

A million, agreed. But 300.000, it's been done more than once. Take the armies of Constantine and Licinius.

About the macedonian army comparative efficency, it is stated by Donald Engels in his book over the logistics of Alexander campaigns. I don´t remember the sources, but he claims that while there was a least 1 servant for every Persian warrior, there was 1 in 7 for the Macedonian army, and while I don´t think the number in itself be reliable, the general pattern of an army carrying a much lighter baggage is.

Well, does that make the logistics inefficient? Did the Persians starve? Remember, we're talking logistics, not army speed or tactics like that. For the Persians to be able to feed these large numbers, their logistics must have been vastly superior! Well, maybe not vastly superior, but by no means inefficient.
Also, the Persians fought inside their own Empire, meaning they had the possibility to draw directly from their resources. the Macedonians were the invaders and did not have that luxury.