03-24-2013, 10:10 PM
Maurice, Leo, Phocas etc always make it very clear what their numbers mean in their manuals. These are not history books but tactical textbooks. Whenever they are discussing numbers to be arrayed for combat, they always mean enlisted men. Attendants/servants are not in the numbers of, for example, a file, a tagma, a meros or an army. They are counted beyond that although of course mentioned. I keep mentioning enlisted men, because in the numbers there were men who did not actually fight. An example would be the daepotatoi or depotatoi, men entrusted with the task to carry the wounded and then collect the spoils. These men were enlisted soldiers given this task and not some specialized force in a tagma, so at one battle a man could be somewhere in the third rank while at the next behind the phalanx following as a daepotatos.
As for the Josephus instance, in my eyes, he just wants to emphasize the great size of the army as is evident from the text. He does not mean that "this number I give here is without the servants, so other numbers I have given are including them." This is why he immediately adds : "...who followed in multitude."
As for the Josephus instance, in my eyes, he just wants to emphasize the great size of the army as is evident from the text. He does not mean that "this number I give here is without the servants, so other numbers I have given are including them." This is why he immediately adds : "...who followed in multitude."
