02-13-2012, 08:06 PM
Quote:They were, in fact, marching through "pacified" territory (the debate over a satrapy of Macedonia/Thrace is another question. The number of sieges were never going to be large until Greece proper (south of Tempe).
Things were much more complex. First, there could have been trouble with the Thracians as indeed was the case soon after. Then, Macedonia and the Greeks of Thrace were never really trustworthy allies and there were incidents of such subordination as soon as Xerxes was off Greece, some examples in Chalcidice come to mind, before the battle of Plataea or thereabouts. Then there would be the potential problems in Thessaly and Boeotia. An "efficient" Persian army such as the ones that would be sent against Agesilaus soon after would not have been enough and would only entertain thoughts of resistance to the northern Greek populace. Do not forget that each city pursued its own policies and thus, from a total of maybe 30-60 walled cities and towns, some could have sided with the southerners. Just 2-3 would have been enough to completely stall the campaign. A force of 60,000 Persians were heading to Mardonius and never reached him because of such delays.
As for Herodot on Mardonius' army marches, I cannot say that I can come to any conclusions from that. The only clue would be the camp size and even that ca be debated in a number of ways. Do you really believe that it would be strategically sound to leave 50-100,000 men in the midst of potentially enemy territory, against an enemy that had proved superior, that controlled the sea, the forts, the country and that could either conduct a war of harassment as easily as attack en force? And all this with no sure allies in the region. What would happen if the Greeks just unloaded a small force of 5-10,000 men in the north of Thessaly to cut them off completely from any supplies? I personally do not think that Xerxes would have done so.
