02-23-2012, 08:06 PM
Quote:Actually, if you bothered to read Thucydides you'd see what I am talking about. He says that the Athenians preferred to go to war with an easy mind, instead of with laborious training, with natural, rather than state-induced courage.
As for my posts, they don't give such an idea at all. If you think anything less than your accepted figure of several hundred thousand is "a small band" it's your problem, not mine. I think millenia of glorifying the war have taken their toll on our perception of what are acceptable figures. To make comprehension easier, we can sum the Achaemenid army up as a late medieval English army on a much larger scale: consisting of a core of landholder infantry, mostly bowmen, supported by an elite of feudal cavalry and auxiliaries from the subject peoples as well as mercenaries.
I prefer to learn from you, you seem to have a better grasp of Greek warfare than Thucydides, Xenophon or any other source I of course haven't read... So, what are the words of Thucydides that tell us that the Athenians looked down on military training as something cowardly? I honestly do not remember as can be the case when anyone mentions something he claims he read in the original and does not provide the quote. Then, maybe, you could also tell me how you came to the conclusion that this is what the Greek army was like. I think that if I ever found the time to read Thucydides, I could find a good many quotes that would say the contrary, even though the quotes would be for a time later than the one in question, some here might argue. The choice of words is important when making a point. You might consider using milder vocabulary when talking history. As for the numbers of the Persians or anyone else, you of course are entitled to your opinion as is everyone.
I guess that for the Persians "invading a bunch of disunited city states" with an army of "untrained militiamen who thought that training was cowardly" would be a piece of cake. How did they lose? Or didn't they and all this story about the Persian Wars are simple propaganda in an effort to encourage a vassal Greece?