Battle of Plataea

[hoplite07]

Okay, Im curious about the details on this battle:

I know there were around 45,000 total troops sent by Sparta including 10,000 real Spartans soldiers leaving 35,000 Spartan serfs. At the end of it which was a manslaughter, the Tegans and Spartans fought the Persians, but exactly how many were there on each side? Did all 45,000 of the Spartans fight here or was it just the 10,000 true warriors? Im curious and around how many Persians did the Tegans and Spartans together kill?

-thx

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

how many were killed depends on the source. Herodotes gives 159 killed at greek side and 45,000 survivors at Persian side (from the 300,000).
Plutarch gives 1360 dead at Greek side and Ephorus and Diodorus both give 10,000+ dead at Greek side.
According to Herodotes, only the Spartans, Tegeans and Athenians fought the Persians.

[Marcus Hortensius Castus]

Is it possible that Herodotes and Plutarch give only the numbers of "Citizen" dead, while Ephorus and Diodorus give numbers of all dead, including serfs? I've heard of casualty counts (though I can't remember the source or occasion) that only count "those that mattered," other than real man-for-man casualty counts.

[hoplite14gr]

Jeroen, the Megareans and no Medising Beotians (Plateans-Thespians) suffered from Masistius horse archers the first day.

Plutrarch gives the details on the dead Megaresans and Fleiaseans who suffered the Theban cavalry counter attack.

Chances are that Pausanias in his Beotika (9th book) is more accurate.

Is is a strong possibility that contignents north of Peloponessus whose lads were devasted by the invaders went on killing frenzy in the camp.
After Salamis there were calls for a "Holy War against the barbarian" and it is well known what horrific slaughter accompanies a "Holy War".
Kind regards

[Idomeneas]

im not sure if it was pure vengeance or need. What i mean. Greeks had to kill as many Persians as they could so they wont have the chance for a regroup. It took all kind of diplomatic tricks to succeed gather a panhellenic army. It wouldnt happen soon if there was the need. They had to finish the persian business once and for all if they could. The psychological trauma to persian empire of an entire army lost within a foreign land would be a great ally to future atempts of the empire against Greece. Imagine how many legends would be created afterwards.

History is full with enemy armies turned to example. Prince Vlad gained his ever lasting personal mythology by making an example out of the turkish army. Vasileios the Bulgarslayer gained many years of piece and quiet after devastating the Bulgarian army and blind the prisoners except 1 in 100 to guide the rest.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Yes,Idomeneas,but you seem to suggest there was a plan,or orders on how many they needed to kill or something.I mean,I believe the sloughter was much more impulsive,after the fear all Greeks had for any Persian army up to this time.
Their fear,together with the fact that the Persian were the first non-greeks this genertion had ever faced lead to possibly unthinkable scenes in the Persian camp and in all the way to Persia.
Even more simply,I don't think any greek-and more so allied-army was able to act after orders.Not in Salamis nor in Plataea.
khaire
Giannis

[hoplite14gr]

Solid orders-most likely no. But religious fanaticism-probably yes.
Kind regards

[Sean Manning]

Okay, Im curious about the details on this battle:

I know there were around 45,000 total troops sent by Sparta including 10,000 real Spartans soldiers leaving 35,000 Spartan serfs. At the end of it which was a manslaughter, the Tegans and Spartans fought the Persians, but exactly how many were there on each side? Did all 45,000 of the Spartans fight here or was it just the 10,000 true warriors? Im curious and around how many Persians did the Tegans and Spartans together kill?

-thx

We are not even roughly sure of the strengths on either side, unfortunately, and only some idea of the casualties on one side (the Greek coalition). 300,000 in the imperial army is impossible, but IIRC that is what Herodotus says. The size of their camp has been used to calculate an upper limit to their possible strength. Likewise, Herodotus' claim that there were two helots, peltasts or psiloi in the Greek army for every hoplite is quite possibly an exaggeration to compensate for his over-estimate of imperial strength, although his count of the Greek hoplite strength sounds reliable. Very possibly each polis committed to send a certain number of hoplites or peltasts, and each polis watched its neighbors to make sure they fulfilled their commitments.

We can say that the Persian army was broken with terrible slaughter, loosing perhaps 10-20% of their force as casualties, but I don't think we can know their losses more precisely than that.

[Aryaman2]

Probably the details Herodotus give about the number of hoplites sent by each city goes back to official lists by those cities, however the number of those actually sent by the cities and in the battle would be considerably smaller.

[hoplite07]

Okay, Im curious about the details on this battle:

I know there were around 45,000 total troops sent by Sparta including 10,000 real Spartans soldiers leaving 35,000 Spartan serfs. At the end of it which was a manslaughter, the Tegans and Spartans fought the Persians, but exactly how many were there on each side? Did all 45,000 of the Spartans fight here or was it just the 10,000 true warriors? Im curious and around how many Persians did the Tegans and Spartans together kill?

-thx

We are not even roughly sure of the strengths on either side, unfortunately, and only some idea of the casualties on one side (the Greek coalition). 300,000 in the imperial army is impossible, but IIRC that is what Herodotus says. The size of their camp has been used to calculate an upper limit to their possible strength. Likewise, Herodotus' claim that there were two helots, peltasts or psiloi in the Greek army for every hoplite is quite possibly an exaggeration to compensate for his over-estimate of imperial strength, although his count of the Greek hoplite strength sounds reliable. Very possibly each polis committed to send a certain number of hoplites or peltasts, and each polis watched its neighbors to make sure they fulfilled their commitments.

We can say that the Persian army was broken with terrible slaughter, loosing perhaps 10-20% of their force as casualties, but I don't think we can know their losses more precisely than that.

So the hoplites killed probably around 30,000-60,000 Persians? Or something like that at least. I also read this from a book titled 'The Spartans' by Paul Cartledge that the 5000 Spartans did around 2/3 of all the killing at Plataea, do u think that sounds right or have u heard this from somewhere else as well.?

[geala]

The Spartans by chance did the most fighting at Plataea. The losses of the Persian army are greatly exaggerated in my opinion, by number not in percent. I don't believe in 300000 Persians even if the non-combatants were added.

A casualty rate of 10 to 20% for a beaten army in the ancient times is not exceptionally high. Even much higher casualty rates occured. At Issos the Persian numbers are estimated to about 250000 to 600000 (I believe the first number is much more probable), with losses of about up to 100000, that would be 16 to 40% losses. At the Trebia in 218 Roman losses are estimated at about 15000 out of the four legion army of 40000, more than 37%. At Cannae there were about 50000 dead of the 86000 Roman warriors. At Pydna in 168 the Macedonians are said to have had losses of about 20000 of the 42000 warriors. The losses of the victors were regularly much less (perhaps about 5%). It is no wonder that the term "Pyrrhic victory" came into use when Pyrrhos lost for example about 8000 out of 35000 when beating the Romans at Heraclea in 280, inflicting about "only" 12000 losses on the four legion Roman army of 40000.

[Aryaman2]

The problem with casualty rates in Ancient times is that we have only battle narratives as sources, no documentary evidence in which missing are counted, with very few exceptions and only for the victorious side.

Check, for instance, this description of the desaster of the Irish Brigade in Fredericksburg, by an eyewitness, Gen. Meagher.
"Resolute, their weapons ready, they advanced to the wooden fence. Suddenly Cobb's men stood and unleashed a staggering volley, which reeled the line as it closed to within 150-200 yards of the stone wall. Canister raked them, leaving huge gaps in the formation. Men of the Irish Brigade fell as they had advanced - in orderly rows. They reached within 75 yards of the wall when a blast of withering fire decimated their ranks so that bodies fell row upon row. Try as they might, they could not close with the wall. Survivors bent forward as if struggling into the face of a fearful nor'easter as they moved through the hail of lead. When they reached the wooden fence, another volley rippled through their ranks, knocking down what seemed to be every third man. Wounded and staggering, Adjutant J. R. Young and Major William Horgan of the 88th made it nearly 30 yards further before collapsing.

Now, the actual casualties from records, out of 1.200, were 120 dead and 425 wounded or missing, if that was an ancient source we would have said that more than half of the men for sure had been killed.

[geala]

That depends on the question wether the ancient habit of counting casualties was the same than ours where a casualty is everybody who is wounded. I'm in doubt about it.
This adds to the enormous range of uncertainty that you stated in your post. We have some battles with rather exact figures and many with vague or greatly exaggerated numbers. But otherwise it would be boring, wouldn't it? :wink:

[Sean Manning]

Okay, Im curious about the details on this battle:

I know there were around 45,000 total troops sent by Sparta including 10,000 real Spartans soldiers leaving 35,000 Spartan serfs. At the end of it which was a manslaughter, the Tegans and Spartans fought the Persians, but exactly how many were there on each side? Did all 45,000 of the Spartans fight here or was it just the 10,000 true warriors? Im curious and around how many Persians did the Tegans and Spartans together kill?

-thx

We are not even roughly sure of the strengths on either side, unfortunately, and only some idea of the casualties on one side (the Greek coalition). 300,000 in the imperial army is impossible, but IIRC that is what Herodotus says. The size of their camp has been used to calculate an upper limit to their possible strength. Likewise, Herodotus' claim that there were two helots, peltasts or psiloi in the Greek army for every hoplite is quite possibly an exaggeration to compensate for his over-estimate of imperial strength, although his count of the Greek hoplite strength sounds reliable. Very possibly each polis committed to send a certain number of hoplites or peltasts, and each polis watched its neighbors to make sure they fulfilled their commitments.

We can say that the Persian army was broken with terrible slaughter, loosing perhaps 10-20% of their force as casualties, but I don't think we can know their losses more precisely than that.

So the hoplites killed probably around 30,000-60,000 Persians? Or something like that at least. I also read this from a book titled 'The Spartans' by Paul Cartledge that the 5000 Spartans did around 2/3 of all the killing at Plataea, do u think that sounds right or have u heard this from somewhere else as well.?

There was room in the camp for around 90,000 infantry and a baggage train similar to that of a Roman legion or late 19th/early 20th century army. The figure of 60,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry was proposed somewhere, but it is only a guess- we don't have a record of how densely Persian camps were populated. Frankly, I doubt anyone knew how many Persian casualties there were. The Persian army mostly broke up (so there was no way to tell how many were killed or captured and how many deserted or died on the way home), the Greeks don't seem to have counted corpses, and there is no evidence that anyone on the Greek side had an accurate estimate of enemy strength before the battle (although they seem to have felt that the imperial army was about as strong as theirs, given the cautious tactics of both sides).

Aryaman2, remember that had any polis failed to deliver its allotted share of hoplites, all its neighbours (= enemies) would have trumpeted the fact. "The rascals aren't doing their fare share to fight against the barbarian!" The estimate might be 10-20% over strength, since it could have been based on paper strengths of units, but that doesn't really matter. That is as accurate as we can expect any interesting number in ancient history to be.

[Paullus Scipio]

....and just to add to our uncertainty, Herodotus, speaking of casualties, says Sparta lost "91 killed", Tegeans "lost 16", and the "Athenians 52" - earlier, referring to the Megarians and others who rush forward in a mob, and get badly cut up by Theban cavalry -" killing 600 of them", and the remainder are driven in flight. He doesn't mention any other contingent's casualties.
But then, speaking of the spartan Callicrates ( "the handsomest man in the army"), Herodotus tells us he was killed crouching behind his shield by a Persian arrow, and was carried away lamenting his inability to strike a blow.Herodotus says he "died outside the battle", clearly implying that those killed before the hand-to-hand struggle didn't count as 'dying in battle' , and were not among 'the honoured dead'.Further, there is no mention of the wounded or those who died of wounds subsequently.
By comparison, Plutarch gives a total of 1360 killed. Both these figures will be in relation to Hoplites only, and make no allowance for psiloi
(light skirmishers with javelins and slings - helots and the like. )
For wounded, a reasonable estimate might be 10 for every 1 killed.
Just goes to show, with all the different factors at play, and allowing for others such as those Aryaman2 referred to( though it might be noted that almost half were 'knocked down'), that casualty estimation is just that - a guessing game !! :? ? lol: