02-17-2012, 10:22 PM
Hi Robert, thanks for the comments
Apologies, I do like to write. But then even when I do play the "specialist" and not the "average layman" and do present facts as written in ancient texts people miss it and concentrate on the rest of debatable things.
I am claiming this because we are ready to accept the size of Grand Armee and we jump on every supposed reason to present objections for the case of Xerxes and his army simply because people are ready to believe Napoleontian records and to dismiss ancient Greek records as if Napoleontian records cannot be wrong or falsified for any given propagandist reason or any common error (i,e. mixing non-combattants and logistics, assuming platoons had the standard number, accepting accounts of allies etc.)... or as if ancient Greeks could not do rough calculations sorting out 100,000 from 1,000,000. If Herodotus a few decades later speaks in the region of 2 million for the overall mobilisation I do accept that he certainly includes all, i.e. land, marine, logistics. Why not? Why would I jump to call him way-off reality?
Historically the only reason that writers jumped to call him erroneous were the reasons I explained above. When seen in details, we have absolutely no valid single reason to dismiss his numbers.
It is naturally to have more documentation and papers and thus establishing better the numbers for the Grand Armee than for an army 2500 years ago that came from a different continent whose culture and historic record was extensively levelled by islamic expansion and it is for this reason we have to employ indirect methods. But that does not mean we have nothing in hands. We have everything in place to have a rough idea of the numbers implicated and everything points that ancient writers' overall calculations referring in the region of millions and not 100,000s like modern ones, were more realistic.
Agreed, I love to write something more but them when I present a hard case none-wants to comment. But let me ask you in turn:
Where are the hard facts for the Grand Armee? French documents? I dismiss them for their inaccuracy, factual errors, deliberate errors, propaganda and total inability of the half-educated French officers to count properly. I also dimiss any Russian reference for obvious post-victory propaganda reasons.
Ok, I cut the joke, I do not dismiss most of the above because I have no serious reason to doubt. What I ask is people who have doubts of Herodotus (not speaking of later writers who could write whatever) to state why they have doubts. And people come up with things like
1) Herodotus likes to tell a nice lie
2) Persians could not have done this because this and that
Are the above hard facts or arguments? Of course not!
I have presented a full line of points difficult to break that establish the feasibility of the campaign - the mere existence of the Grand Armee being the best proof.
I established not only how feasible it was for Persians to do such a mobilisation but actually how strictly necessary given the balance of the situation.
So what you really ask me is to bring hard evidence to verify it - what? a Persian text naming 1 by 1 all Persian soldiers? or signs of the perimetry of the totality of Persian camps?.
And here I return the argument by saying
"Why did we find such hard facts to establish Persians were not that many"?
I do ask:
Where are the hard facts to tell us that Persians had brought into Greece, say, less than 300,000 land troops and less than 800,000 mariners and logistics/support.
The Persian invasion was not to punish the Athenians or something but to invade and conquer Greece. It was an invasion for conquest. That is clear to most if not all ancient and modern analysts and it is on this basis I do comment.
I used explicitly the term "campaign" to bring into comparison the Persian effort of conquest of Greece to the later Roman effort of conquest of Greece (and other regions). I compared the efforts and explained why I do believe that Persians would never leave Persia and go have an adventure in Greece with anything smaller than several (more than 3) 100,000s of soldiers backed up by the necessary logistics behind let alone the military navy to back up that logistics in turn. I have no reason to believe Persians would had miscalculated their effort and to hear someone say so I would ask him on what basis does he claim so.
In that sense Assyrians too were non-Aramaic people speaking another language who turned later to Aramaic. Soumerians were non-Aramaic people who converted later. Middle Eastern is not just Aramaic Semitic people. In the periphery lots of non-Aramaic people lived, Armenians to name one. Elamites in the coastal Persian gulf were not Aramaic nor Iranian.
When i did this comment was to put the contrast between the socio-cultural gap of Greeks to locals as compared between Persians and locals. In the first case it was bigger. It was meant to explain how Persians would show some trust and importance over locals, Greeks rarely to never. Thus the need for restraining locals from being occupied effectively in the armies. Thus there is no case of Hellenistic monarchs not having the means to manage bigger than 100,000 armies but not having the motive. Persians had it.
I do accept though your objection on Egyptians who equally viewed all as foreigners (and were not very affectionate towards Persians).
Quote: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?
Apologies, I do like to write. But then even when I do play the "specialist" and not the "average layman" and do present facts as written in ancient texts people miss it and concentrate on the rest of debatable things.
I am claiming this because we are ready to accept the size of Grand Armee and we jump on every supposed reason to present objections for the case of Xerxes and his army simply because people are ready to believe Napoleontian records and to dismiss ancient Greek records as if Napoleontian records cannot be wrong or falsified for any given propagandist reason or any common error (i,e. mixing non-combattants and logistics, assuming platoons had the standard number, accepting accounts of allies etc.)... or as if ancient Greeks could not do rough calculations sorting out 100,000 from 1,000,000. If Herodotus a few decades later speaks in the region of 2 million for the overall mobilisation I do accept that he certainly includes all, i.e. land, marine, logistics. Why not? Why would I jump to call him way-off reality?
Historically the only reason that writers jumped to call him erroneous were the reasons I explained above. When seen in details, we have absolutely no valid single reason to dismiss his numbers.
It is naturally to have more documentation and papers and thus establishing better the numbers for the Grand Armee than for an army 2500 years ago that came from a different continent whose culture and historic record was extensively levelled by islamic expansion and it is for this reason we have to employ indirect methods. But that does not mean we have nothing in hands. We have everything in place to have a rough idea of the numbers implicated and everything points that ancient writers' overall calculations referring in the region of millions and not 100,000s like modern ones, were more realistic.
Agreed, I love to write something more but them when I present a hard case none-wants to comment. But let me ask you in turn:
Quote: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?
Where are the hard facts for the Grand Armee? French documents? I dismiss them for their inaccuracy, factual errors, deliberate errors, propaganda and total inability of the half-educated French officers to count properly. I also dimiss any Russian reference for obvious post-victory propaganda reasons.
Ok, I cut the joke, I do not dismiss most of the above because I have no serious reason to doubt. What I ask is people who have doubts of Herodotus (not speaking of later writers who could write whatever) to state why they have doubts. And people come up with things like
1) Herodotus likes to tell a nice lie
2) Persians could not have done this because this and that
Are the above hard facts or arguments? Of course not!
I have presented a full line of points difficult to break that establish the feasibility of the campaign - the mere existence of the Grand Armee being the best proof.
I established not only how feasible it was for Persians to do such a mobilisation but actually how strictly necessary given the balance of the situation.
So what you really ask me is to bring hard evidence to verify it - what? a Persian text naming 1 by 1 all Persian soldiers? or signs of the perimetry of the totality of Persian camps?.
And here I return the argument by saying
"Why did we find such hard facts to establish Persians were not that many"?
I do ask:
Where are the hard facts to tell us that Persians had brought into Greece, say, less than 300,000 land troops and less than 800,000 mariners and logistics/support.
Quote:You speak in enigma's. Roman campaigns took 50 or 80 years? Which campaign was that? And you state it as a rule??hock:
The Persian invasion was not to punish the Athenians or something but to invade and conquer Greece. It was an invasion for conquest. That is clear to most if not all ancient and modern analysts and it is on this basis I do comment.
I used explicitly the term "campaign" to bring into comparison the Persian effort of conquest of Greece to the later Roman effort of conquest of Greece (and other regions). I compared the efforts and explained why I do believe that Persians would never leave Persia and go have an adventure in Greece with anything smaller than several (more than 3) 100,000s of soldiers backed up by the necessary logistics behind let alone the military navy to back up that logistics in turn. I have no reason to believe Persians would had miscalculated their effort and to hear someone say so I would ask him on what basis does he claim so.
Quote: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:
In that sense Assyrians too were non-Aramaic people speaking another language who turned later to Aramaic. Soumerians were non-Aramaic people who converted later. Middle Eastern is not just Aramaic Semitic people. In the periphery lots of non-Aramaic people lived, Armenians to name one. Elamites in the coastal Persian gulf were not Aramaic nor Iranian.
When i did this comment was to put the contrast between the socio-cultural gap of Greeks to locals as compared between Persians and locals. In the first case it was bigger. It was meant to explain how Persians would show some trust and importance over locals, Greeks rarely to never. Thus the need for restraining locals from being occupied effectively in the armies. Thus there is no case of Hellenistic monarchs not having the means to manage bigger than 100,000 armies but not having the motive. Persians had it.
I do accept though your objection on Egyptians who equally viewed all as foreigners (and were not very affectionate towards Persians).
