10-30-2006, 09:25 PM
Aryaman, you mentioned that literary sources are almost always inflated when compared to documentary sources. Do you know of a large enough sampling of these instances to come up with some 'fudge factor' that is the average inflation percent? To me, this alone would be a better way to estimate a size for Xerxes army. I just don't think that logistics would be the bottleneck for army size, especially not in this particular case, where the enemy is a very small neighboring country.
And about that 5,000,000 for newcomers to the discussion; Xerxes counts up 2,500,000 for the total land and sea force. Then he casually doubles the amount to account for the expected number of camp followers. Pretty much the wildest guess one can make! I doubt that Napolean had the full compliment of 691,000 camp followers going into Russia. :lol:
And about that 5,000,000 for newcomers to the discussion; Xerxes counts up 2,500,000 for the total land and sea force. Then he casually doubles the amount to account for the expected number of camp followers. Pretty much the wildest guess one can make! I doubt that Napolean had the full compliment of 691,000 camp followers going into Russia. :lol:
Rich Marinaccio
