10-20-2006, 10:53 AM
2) I didn´t say every source, I said sometimes, when you have both documentary and literary sources on the same fact. For instance, Bernardo da Forli says that the French force that stormed Mordano in 1494 was 14.000 strong, however a French pay roll of that same force showed 1.992 soldiers. This can be done only occasionally, but everytime I have had the chance literary sources are grossly inflated. Besides that, as I said, those large numbers are in contradiction with the numbers written down in pay rolls and muster rolls since XIV century onwards, which are very consistent, you don´t find, for instance, any documentary evidence for an army of 100.000, or 50.000, before the second half of the XVII century.
Ancient authors most of the time talk about numbers in round figures, they don´t discriminate between a field army an the whole force, or kills/wounded/POWs/Missing. To sum up, if you compare the kind of information they give to the kind of information it is acceptable for an XVIII century source, for instance, the is a world of diffrence, they would be considered totally inadequate.
3) Documents written by an administrative organization in charge of either paying the troops or taking a muster of the present troops.
4) Alexander had no supply lines, as no army in ancient times had, they had communication lines, which is a completely different thing. I repit As DW Engels paragraph "Alexander would never commit his entire army for a campaign that had not surrendered to him in advance" I recommend you his work for a better understanding of the supply system of ancient armies.
Alexander and the Persians faced for most of the campaign a similar logistical situation in the sense that they would be able to place depots in advance to their route of marche, the ammount of supply that could be gathered along a given route is, however, limited, and the Persians reached that limit earlier than the Macedonians with an army ladden with a far larger baggage and with a larger proportion of cavalry.
Ancient authors most of the time talk about numbers in round figures, they don´t discriminate between a field army an the whole force, or kills/wounded/POWs/Missing. To sum up, if you compare the kind of information they give to the kind of information it is acceptable for an XVIII century source, for instance, the is a world of diffrence, they would be considered totally inadequate.
3) Documents written by an administrative organization in charge of either paying the troops or taking a muster of the present troops.
4) Alexander had no supply lines, as no army in ancient times had, they had communication lines, which is a completely different thing. I repit As DW Engels paragraph "Alexander would never commit his entire army for a campaign that had not surrendered to him in advance" I recommend you his work for a better understanding of the supply system of ancient armies.
Alexander and the Persians faced for most of the campaign a similar logistical situation in the sense that they would be able to place depots in advance to their route of marche, the ammount of supply that could be gathered along a given route is, however, limited, and the Persians reached that limit earlier than the Macedonians with an army ladden with a far larger baggage and with a larger proportion of cavalry.
AKA Inaki
