Persian Invasion of 480 BC - articles

[Sean Manning]

Soldiers who are starving will be little if any use in battle. You need strength to shoot a bow or wield spear and shield.

I know, Sean, I've done both.

Then you're one up on me (smile). I agree that reenactment experience can be a great help in understanding ancient warfare, particularly on an issue like the mechanics of combat or the nuisances of living in the field. If this were an issue like that, I would attach great weight to the opinion of somebody who has done the thing in question and not just read about it. As is, I've noted that you seem to think ancient soldiers could stand up to worse conditions than I do, and that you have some experience to justify your views whereas my knowledge is purely scholarly. However, most of the logistical difficulties of supporting a large army fall outside the usual range of reenactment.

If you were Xerxes King of Kings, would you go off to punish the Yauna Beyond the Sea with an army that would be skin and bones by the time it reached Athens?

Of course not, neither does what I wrote earlier support such an interpretation. I would go expecting success to provide me with enough food to allow my army to fight or defeat to remove the necessity of foraging.

I was thinking of this statement below. It implies that you believed that Xerxes could afford to let his troops starve without badly compromising their combat efficiency and ability to intimidate. Xerxes could expect that any battle would be well within Greece, after he had been marching for months, and after his soldiers would have startened to sicken and die if they were recieving inadequate food. Even with the Greeks submitting before him, there is a sharp limit to how much food could be collected by an army column without relying on sea transportation, and that has its own difficulties since his massive fleet needed food and port space. Note how Xerxes split his army into three columns while marching through Thessaly and Macedon, presumably to widen the area they could collect food and recieve submission from. For most of their route, however, and when they wintered in inland Sardis (Hdt. 7.37), they marched in one column. Alexander's 50,000 often weren't easy to supply, even when the enemy submitted before him.

I think slaves and servants in the Persian army would have made a contribution as combatants as well as bearers; I think ancient warriors were accustomed to minimal home comforts when they were at home and therefore were able to cope with great hardships on campaign; I think their generals were quite at ease with the idea that their men might be half-starved and exhausted by the end of a campaign, as this was only to be expected; I think they were also happy to send unfit men into battle, as they were great believers in the theory of the big battalions (i.e., that God is on their side); ...

Grinding grain is slow and tiring,

Know. Done it. Mind you, I had two small girls produce enough flour for a couple of rolls in an hour, last Monday.

What would your lower figure be?

I was probably mistaken here, thinking of armies like the Roman or Macedonian which sharply limited the number of servants. The only figure I can find off-hand is about 10 lbs per hour for a Roman army hand-mill. This would keep a servant busy for hours if he had to feed a tentful or half-file, but not if he only had to feed himself and one or two soldiers.

Were you using a modern mill or a replica?