Ancient army numbers

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Nikos

On the contrary, the notion that Persians could not assemble a half a million army by mobilising more than 1 million people just because they were "ancient" or... "Asian" is more than pervasive! Asian nations were the first to gather vast numbers!

Nikos, when you are reacting to a post, please take care not to 'lecture' or to stray from the text you are reacting to. I can't recall anybody (including myself advocating the statement that the Persians could not mobilise a million men more than 1 million people just because they were "ancient" or... "Asian". Why are you claiming this?

We sure do theorise a lot in this thread, but even so, some proof for statements is wanted. So if you sate that "500 BC Persians had everything in place to govern and move around 500,000 soldiers" I expect you can back that up with hard facts from the study of Persian sources or archaeology?

But that is not an argument that they did not! Every single point out there points out that they had all the money, all the means, all the facilities and all the good reasons to gather a very big army for that campaign.

I see the ball in the other court. Sure, the fact that no other power in ancient times managed to put an army in the field of 500.000 (let's forget that million-fast!) is indeed no argument, like you say, that it could not have happened. However, despite vehemently stating that the Persian 'should' have been able to do just that, you have still not given any argument to back that up. So although it's a tie, it's a tie favouring the 'no proof' side, as far as I'm concerned. If they had all the means and the facilities, as you say they had, at least give us one piece of evidence that they, at least once, actually did so!

Such a campaign was not meant to last 50 or 80 years like a Roman campaign.

You speak in enigma's. Roman campaigns took 50 or 80 years? Which campaign was that? And you state it as a rule?? hock:

You compare apples with oranges. Persians were not foreigners but "Middle-east kids".

I'm afriad you're wrong. Persians were not "Middle-east kids" like the rest of them, they were as foreign to the inhabitants of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Anatolia and all the other lands under their domination as Antiochus would have been. Their (Indo-Iranian) language differed from most languages spoken there, their gods were different, their background differed. It would be a great misunderstanding to see them as 'one and the same' with all other peoples in the Near East. To them, it matter little whether the king who called the shots was a pharaoh from the Nile, a Great King from Persia or an emperor from Rome. All 'bl..dy foreigners'. :wink: