10-25-2006, 02:44 PM
Quote:It is a scientific fact that a healthy man needs at least 3 lbs of wheat or the equivalent a day when doing heavy labour. If he gets less than this, than he slowly starves. Historical precedents support this.
This makes sense, but the man is going to need most of this no matter how he might be employed. That's the thing. An empire has X amount of men and pack animals doing whatever it is they do, and I don't see how moving them to a concentrated location into foreign territory drastically increases their needs. I'm sure that food of various types was transported all over the vast Persian empire, making a trip to Greece cannot be a big deal transport wise. If you were marching across a wasteland, there would certainly be a limit to how far you could penetrate, but you're likely to find some nice grazing land and water on the way, which would extend your range by quite a lot. As your food load lightens, you can also get something back from eating the extra pack animals. That might seem kinda gross to eat a mule, but Xerxes men were eating grass and tree bark on the way back. Not fun.
If a few dozen miles was the extent that grain could be transported without eating it all, there could be no profitable land-based trade in grain, or any type of food, which I'm pretty sure there was... Am I wrong?
Rich Marinaccio
