Readings on population and army size?

[diegis]

Acording to Strabon, Burebista's Dacian army was around 200,000 soldiers, and after his death and his "state"/empire/kingdom was split, each of the 5 parts was able to raise an army of 40,000 soldiers.

From what historians said this mean that Dacia of Burebista had at least 2 millions population, with about 1 of 10 people being used in that army

During wars between Dacians of Decebalus and Roman army of Trajan i saw suppositions that Dacian army had from 40,000 to 60,000 to 100,000 (20,000 being Sarmatian and Bastarnae alies in this case) to a whooping 250,000. The last number is reffering however to a number of available men, not that it was reached on any battlefield or the army really comprised at any moment that many soldiers.
And Decebalus kingdom was however smaller then Burebista one.

[Marja]

Yes. But where is Strabo getting this information? Would his sources have accurate info? Would his sources be trustworthy?

Elsewhere Strabo says that the Belgae could muster 300,000 armed men, but he might be getting that number from Caesar, and Caesar is known for exaggeration. It's likely that Dacia, in Burebista's time, had more people than all of Belgica, despite having fewer soldiers in Strabo's geography.

The Romans are probably more reliable when counting their own numbers than when counting 'barbarian' numbers. The next issue is what kind of numbers are we talking about: soldiers? militia? all men able to bear arms?

[Sean Manning]

We do have to be careful because of the limited numeracy of ancient elites, the difficulty of determining army strengths, and the literary topos, going back to the Persian War, that barbarian armies were of unimaginable size. When an ancient narrator speaks of barbarian armies in the hundreds of thousands, I think its best to translate the numbers as "countless," just as we sometimes speak of thousands, millions, and billions without implying an exact magnitude.

I will address some of these issues in my forthcoming Master's thesis (plug, plug).

[diegis]

Yes. But where is Strabo getting this information? Would his sources have accurate info? Would his sources be trustworthy?

Elsewhere Strabo says that the Belgae could muster 300,000 armed men, but he might be getting that number from Caesar, and Caesar is known for exaggeration. It's likely that Dacia, in Burebista's time, had more people than all of Belgica, despite having fewer soldiers in Strabo's geography.

The Romans are probably more reliable when counting their own numbers than when counting 'barbarian' numbers. The next issue is what kind of numbers are we talking about: soldiers? militia? all men able to bear arms?

I think Strabo had some good sources, as in his writings he mention for example the holy mountain of Dacians/Getae where Zalmoxis lived, and he give its name too, Kogaionon.

This is an information that is not found to other historians back then so i assume he had some sources from Dacia. Burebista used a Greek for example, as ambassador send to Pompeius (they wanted to make an alliance in which Burebista to help Pompei against Caesar, and they established the border of their states in Balkan peninsula).

Is possible that Greek engineers worked to some Dacian fortresses, and so is possible that Strabo sources to be OK (even if not excellent).

I think he said however that Burebista can raise an army of 200,000 soldiers, not that was the permanent army or was gathered all in one place. I find that number believeable, for at least a 2 million population. Maybe 20,000 or even less was a sort of permanent army scattered all over the country (garrison duties and stuff like that)

Getae/Dacians (but more or less all "barbarians") was a warlike culture, and all people was required to have weapons or such, and war was kinda a religious habit.

So 1 of every 10 people being called in the army seem to be OK. Some was too old, some was women, some was kids, some needed to work the field or take care of cattles, guard their village etc. so just 1 of 10 is the usual ratio i saw.

I think that Belgae was significantly lower, maybe 30,000 not 300,000 (or that was the entire population there, not just warriors-see the numbers of Cimbrii and Teutonii too, when they was defeated by Caius Marius), but Gauls surely can raise 250,000 warriors at a population of 5 millions let say.
Even if let say they wasnt such religiously martial like oriented as in Dacian case, or wasnt the case as in nomadic people style (let say Sarmatians), all go to war, but surely they was warlike enough and had enough people to go to war even if in a lower percent

That they wasnt all in the same time at Alesia for example, is possible, and surely Caesar exagerated with the numbers in his writings. But i find that number possible for that size of population.

[Marja]

Given certain interpretations, both are believable totals, and both might be based on reliable sources, but one datum isn't much data. And there is a lot that can go wrong between sources. A good estimate of the numbers might be off. A good estimate of the number who can bear arms might be confused with an estimate of the number in the main field army. And so on.

And Strabo might be using rhetorical numbers, since he's contrasting two strengths to illustrate a decline since Burebista's time: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text...ction%3D13

So stated strengths are useful, but they are more useful if multiple lines of evidence yield comparable strengths. Some possible examples:

1. So do certain population figures tend to imply certain army size figures? Unfortunately, there are many uncertainties surrounding the population figures. I prefer 5-15/km2 in central Europe, but others prefer lower estimates. And there are almost as many uncertainties surrounding army size figures given population figures. Mogens Herman Hansen estimates a maximum of 17% of the citizen population for Greek city-states. But this falls to less than 2% of the total population for the Roman Empire.

2. So can the strengths of Roman armies give some clue to the strengths of their opponents' armies? In principle yes. But what is the relationship? Is the Roman field army in Gaul comparable to that of the Franks and the Alamanni individually, or in combination? What about with Frankish mercenaries in Alamannic armies? Where do the garrison armies fit in? So we would need to calibrate these numbers before we can use them to calibrate other numbers.

[Marja]

A bit off-topic perhaps, but what were the agricultural calendars through the Roman Empire, and what were the varieties of wheat Plinius refers to? Apparently the usual wheat would be planted in November and harvested the next year, while two other types of wheat could be planted in February/March and harvested 40 or 90 days later.

[Marja]

I think I need a bit more evidence before extrapolating from Greece in the 4th century B.C.E. to central Europe in the 4th century C.E. I wasn't relying on that alone, but much of the other data, was just too controversial [Italia, Aegyptus] and/or too incomplete [everywhere else] for comfort, and many of my other assumptions about the relationship between population densities in different areas were just too speculative.