Persian Invasion of 480 BC - articles

[floofthegoof]

What technological advances made it possible for Napoleon to move 500,000 men, that Xerxes did not have access to?

You keep confusing global armies with field armies, Napoleon never moved a field army of 500.000, the top was around 130.000, thanks, as I already explained, to the supply lines system, that was unknown before the second half of the XVII century

I haven't studied Nappy's army all that much, but
from wikipedia:

On June 24, 1812, the Grande Armée of 691,501 men, the largest army assembled up to that point in European history, crossed the river Neman and headed towards Moscow.

The Grande Armée was divided as follows:

A central strike force of 250,000 under the emperor's personal command.
Two other frontline armies under Eugène de Beauharnais (80,000 men) and Jérôme Bonaparte (70,000 men).
Two detached corps under Jacques MacDonald (32,500 men) and Karl Schwarzenberg (34,000 Austrian troopers).
A reserve army of 225,000 troops.

Now, the supply line system you mention sounds quite a bit like what Herodotus described, but somewhat reversed, sending supplies ahead instead of following. Xerxes was basically in friendly territory until Thermopylae don't forget. After one season in the area of Athens, maybe 60-70 miles inside of actual enemy territory, the army was in a starving condition as you may remember from other threads. That really gives the appearance of a cartoonishly oversized army. After all, it was assembled for theatre, not battle.

What more do you have to say about the supply line system? How exactly do we know it wasn't used in ancient times? Is it one of those 'absence of evidence being evidence of absence' things?