Ancient army numbers

[Nikanor]

Do you think it is also plausible that Carthage in 480 BC could raise, feed and pay an army of 300.000 men?

Absolutely.

-> The contemporary source again is Herodotus and then we have a later text by Diodoros Sikelos who compiled works of earlier writers and there we have references for Carthagenian expendition forces rising up to 3000 cargo ships, 200 war ships and 300,000
men. Rough calculations, but they have to be taken as they are, i.e. showing the level of Carthagenian army volumes.
-> There is no heroic inflation of numbers of Carthagenians and heroic deflation of numbers of Greeks: Greek alliance force is also scaled to a 6 digit level at 100,000+ men.
-> In such cases the attacker must always bring at least more than 2/1, unless he has an army of vastly superior quality than the opponent (not the case of Carthagenians).
-> Carthagenians were much aware of their own motley-crew infantry deficit in front of Greek infantries which despite the mentioned existence of low-level victories in the past against fragments of Greeks in western Sicily and in Iberia, they never really faced the proper mass of Greeks anywhere usually receding when Greeks gathered in numbers. Difficult to suggest they would ever attempt attacking with anything less than double the Greek force. In fact, finding a record of an enemy that attacked Greeks with anything less than the double is difficult in antiquity (as in later eras - thus the title fo the other thread about "Greeks outnumbered"; no magic here: refer to geo-position, terrain, attack vs. defense rations, styles of warfare, etc.)
-> Among the big Greek army, Syracusian army only rose to more than 50,000 men and several 100s of ships.
-> Syracuse was a state populated 3 times the Athenian population! If Athens' had a total force of 20,000 troops, Syracuse would have a minimum of 3 times that number.
-> Just a year before, Gelon had proposed to aid mainland Greece for the oncoming Persian invasion with some 28,000 troops (4000 cavalry) and 200 ships. Is it logical to suggest that in that grave crisis time he would had sent anything less than double that force to meet the Carthagenian invasion? Absolutely not.
-> Add to Syracusians, Akragas, Gela and other Sicilian Greek cities that were sufficiently large (larger than the average cities in Greek mainland) to provide massive armies, thus the total Greek army numbers estimates look reasonable.
-> Due to the above, the 300,000 estimate for Carthagenian forces looks normal too given that some of them should had been more logistics than proper military (though due to small distances involved and existence of local allies, logistics pressure was smaller)
-> Carthagenians used all that massive number of cargo ships to tranfer not really supplies (which could be easily trasferred on a daily basis from N. Africa with a smaller number of ships) but to transfer the massive numbers of vassals, mercenaries and allies from N. Africa, Iberia, Gaul, Sardinia, Corsica and Italy. To be noted that the logistics to soldiers ration would be smaller than in the case of the Persian army due to the geo-position of the war.
-> Following the description of overall expendition numbers, the actual number of battle-troops is always a question. In no war, in no battle ever anyone sends in the totality of his army. However it is rational to think that due to the easy logistics for both, more than half the numbers from both sides had some military action with at least a low minimum of the 1/3rd from each taking active part in the main events of the frontline.

So who thinks still of the Carthagenian expendition being much less than 300,000? Based on what evidence? Again on them being non-European and "ancient culture" thus incapable of moving such troops? Or on the "Greek writers' fantasies". Highly naif. This whole negation little game is nothing else than a 19th-20th century invention of downplaying the ancient figures treating the ancient as incapable of distinguishing an army of 20,000 and an army of 200,000. Insulting to say the least, then it comes with direct contrast to all evidence and common logic.

-> In Himera - which itself was a relatively small and unimportant city, in 2008 during works for a railway, there have been found more than 10,000 graves many of which are actually group-graves containing bodies of men, 15 to 25 men of prime age, particular health (average height of 1,75cm) with signs of violent death, each all dating up in the 5th BC century. While the mass graves of civilians point out to the destruction of the city in the late 5th century by Amilcar's grandson Hannibal (who had also sacrificed 3000 prisoners on the place of death of his ancestor), the earlier mass graves of warriors point out to the mass of the dead of Greeks - which of course are noted to have had fewer casualties than the Carthagenians who lost the battle and got slaughtered. They are thus a good indication of what was the real magnitude of the forces participating in the battle of Himera and verify the ancient contemporary reference-claim and not the 19th-20th century suggestion-claim.

You have to understand that the peak of the Carthagenian military had not been the later Romanocarthagenian wars but the wars between Carthage and Syracuse in the 5th and 4th centuries. Carthage was also the biggest naval force in the Mediterranean in those times. The 200 warships mentioned is actually a mediocre number showing that its use was mostly to guard the passage of the cargo ships transferring the land troops - i.e. a clear sign of the actual intentions of Carthagenians to conquer rather than to play business-games as some suggested. The amasing 3000 cargo fleet are a fleet that Carthagenians and their outposts (colonies, usually small ports that functioned as businesses rather than cities - each easily managing 50 cargo ships of various sizes) could had amassed in a total war like that. Note that cargo ships were big but sailing on sails (oars were for military ships) thus required a lower number of sailors - these carried a mass of soldiers and provisions.

And what was the Carthagenian aim if not waging total war. The pretext was ridiculous (defending a fallen tyrant of Himera) but the target clear - Carthagenians had been for years preparing that campaign and they stroke simultaneously with the Persian attack in mainland Greece. The parallel waging of war along with Persians who were of course led by Mardonius, friend of Phoenicians, based on the Phoenician navy is more than blatant and one has only to marvel at the active effort of modern historians to downplay the Cathagenian-Syracusian conflict and describe it as a localised business-war when Carthagenians along with brothers Phoenicians were clearly in a war maybe not of genocide of all of Greeks as suggested excessively by some but certainly of total destruction of the Greek maritime powers proven by the fact that in the east they targeted offensively mainly the Ionian maritime powers and in the west the Dorian maritime powers while trying to use the lesser-maritime powers (Macedonians-Aeolians-Boetians in east and Ionians in the west).

If one cannot see that in the 1st millenium BC the major clash had always been the one between Phoenician and Greek commercial navies then he really has understood nothing out of ancient history. As for the... "numbers": whoever disregards whatever ancient writers note, it will be HIM the responsible to present his points and defend his irrational and baseless position. Next time you are inclined to say "they could not be that many because they were... ancient", think it twice.

Nikos