Xerxes' Army

D. Spencer Hines

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Nov 18, 2021, 2:18:38 PM11/18/21

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What happened to Tiglath's beautiful thread on Xerxes' Army?

Background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I#:~:text=Xerxes%20set%20out%20in%20the%20spring%20of%20480,of%20Athens%20Achaemenid%20king%20killing%20a%20Greek%20hoplite.

DSH

Tiglath

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Nov 18, 2021, 10:19:29 PM11/18/21

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There is not much new. I am working on several fronts; despite the narrow scope of the project, there is a lot to do.

An amusing task is the 'getting to know the opposition' task.

What happens when the historian on which others base their essays is fundamentally wrong?

Baucer leans on Young and Young leans on Maurice, but Maurice says that the Ten Thousand Immortals, to use as a yardstick, occupied 6 miles of road on the march. The same cavalry numbers, twice the length. And from there he extrapolates... It's a beautiful house of cards...

F. Maurice, "The size of the army of Xerxes in their invasion of Greece, 480 8C, 1930.
T. Cuyler Young, Jr. "480/479 B.C.-A Persian Perspective," Iranica Antiqua 15 (1980), 213-39 }
Jack Martin Balcer - The Persian Wars against Greece: A Reassessment - 1989

Maurice argues for a 200,000 army, Young's disputes those numbers with lamentable arithmetic, and Balcer disputes further saying that Persian numbers were similar to Greek numbers. So primary sources constantly alluding to BIG Persian numbers are all delusional. Yep. Such balls.

Now we have Google Earth, and drones, and I will confirm it in person, and you can see terrain from space down to street level. There is no way Xerxes' army had to march four-abreast through a defile in the Galllipoli Peninsula. There are valleys and other passes for multiple columns to advance, most elevations are below 300 meters. Anyone can check, and with Google Earth Pro you get also historical data. If I want to compare the discharge of rivers by season, it's all there. Such luxury, such luck...

I understand that some people who chose the humanities for a career may not be good with numbers, but this is ridiculous. Running the numbers these historians present is mystifying, how could they publish that rubbish, and how can a British general be so bad with numbers, one wonders.

One comment I heard is that generals of that era were not only fixated on Napoleonic practice but had also developed a different sense of spacing. It seems that increasingly accurate artillery called for less and less bunching up of the troops whether on the move or at rest. Hence the enormous camping requirements exhibited by Maurice. How he could think such doctrine could apply to antiquity is another matter. I am almost ready to declare Maurice a raving incompetent. Soon. Need to triple-check MY numbers...

Not one historian addressing food supply during the march and the invasion, 480-479 BC, mentions fish. Only grain and water. These people are not from the Mediterranean obviously, or know it well at all.

I repeat, the Mediterranean sea caters for all populous countries in its basin, replete with seafood lovers. Even in these times of over-fishing and pollution, this wondrous sea provides also for exports and millions of visitors that come on holiday in the summer. Now imagine how plentiful it must have been 2500 years ago. Also...

Greece has less than 700 km of borders, but 13,700 km of coastline, more than any other nation in the sea. Imagine the amounts of clams, shrimp, mussels, crabs, sardines, anchovies, sprat, and thousands of other fish... To ignore fish in logistics that include a large navy hugging the coast of the Aegean and Greece, is negligence. I am not impressed.

Not that I offer the last word. I only want to join a conversation between writer and reader started millennia ago, and keep it going.

Understanding my own research really helps understand and use that of others.

My job is to be Q, as in Quartermaster. How can it be done? I think I have it. The key is in the famous Royal Road from Susa to Sardis, a 90-day voyage, and in a Napoleonic maxim: March divided, fight combined.

To be continued...

Tiglath

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Dec 10, 2021, 2:48:18 PM12/10/21

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First Draft --- xerxes-the-recount.com

Eric Stevens

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Dec 10, 2021, 6:45:00 PM12/10/21

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On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 19:19:28 -0800 (PST), Tiglath <te...@tiglath.net>
wrote:

After all these years of finding most of your postings to be target
material I am gratified to find your alter ego writing something
really worthwhile. I am impressed by the thoroughness of your approach
(at least by newsgroup standards) and look forward to your
conclusions.

Merry Christmas,

Eric Stevens

Tiglath

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Dec 11, 2021, 9:30:36 PM12/11/21

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Merry (at least by newsgroups standards) Christmas to you too, buddy.