Ancient army numbers

[Paralus]

None of the above numbers are improbable and room for more ships in Asia is of course aplenty, in my opinion. Fielding ships was never a problem, manning them was. Each of the listed Achaemenid dominions certainly had the manpower to do so.

The numbers are not at all probable. If command and control was difficult for much more than 60-70,000 infantry, how more so for 1,207 triremes?! If these are fully manned you're speaking of near a quarter of a million men - and this is, of course, to totally ignore the grain and other supply ships that could "not be counted". The men who manned these ships - including the supply ships - had to be experienced sailors; those on the triremes even more so. One can only imagine the number of pier-side whore houses going bankrupt in the eastern Mediterranean over this campaign.

On the numbers of infantry and cavalry it is a salutary point that we never hear of anything approaching the numbers accorded to Achaemenid armies in the Diadoch or later Hellenistic period. Antigonus, Lysimachus and Seleucus fought for Asia with a combined total of some 134,000 infantry and 20,500 cavalry. Antiochus III, in defence of his realm, fielded 70,000 infantry. Raphia saw some 140,000 men on the field. These are the largest Hellenistic battles that we have some figures for. None of them - none - approach the plainly ridiculous figures for Achaemenid armies in the Greek sources. Whilst we're on invasion figures, just what on God's Earth was Hannibal thinking invading Italy with a measly 50,000??

It remains an unfortunate fact that, as far as the Hellenocentric sources are concerned, one Greek or Macedonian must defeat at least ten effete Persians. Either that or we must be prepared to believe that Cyrus - who certainly well knew what he was marching into - relied upon some 13,000 Greeks to win his battle against the King's 900,000 strong army (or 1,200,000 had the King's bastard brother not been late). Xenophontic literary flatulence.