Efstathios wrote: If the figures of 400 and 600.000 Persians that the sources give are not correct, then why would the figures for Egypt be correct? They come from some of the same sources. Because they seem more reasonable?
Hi Efstathios.
Sorry 'bout the length….it seemed to take on a life all its own, and, about as controllable as my kids.
It would be rather churlish to suggest that they do not appeal to me because they seem more reasonable. The fact is, they are more reasonable. This in no way argues against their accuracy.
Efstathios wrote:Sending only 10.000 soldiers to deal with the Egyptians ,when they had been a pain in the neck for the Persians doesnt seem reasonable. Not when surely the Persian Empire had a lot more available to send.
Diodorus (15.41.1) tells us that Iphicrates led a Greek contingent of 20,000 to Egypt, in about 374/3, as part of Pharnabazus' army who – at the direction of Atraxerxes II – was charged with the recovery of the province. The mercenaries were required due to the fact that two other expeditions – apparently sans hoplites – had been repelled by the Egyptians with the aid of the Athenian condottiere Chabrias and a corps of Greeks. Obviously – like the Macedonian phalanx – Iphicrates' mercenary army was to be the engine of the victory. Diodorus then goes on to tell us that the total force was 200,000. Nip of scotch, pint of water?
Similarly, for the invasion of 343, Diodorus (15.41.3) informs us that Artaxerxes III took Greek mercenaries to Egypt (where he was successful – and had Alexander encountered this fellow ten years later?). This time the most important corps of the army is rendered to a ridiculous rump of 10,000 (mostly Theban/ Boeotian if memory serves) of 300,000! Nip of scotch and gallon of water?
At Cunaxa Clearchus' Greeks number 10,040 hoplites and 2,500 peltasts. This out of an army numbering "100,000 native troops". These were the troops that Cyrus the Younger was pinning his dreams of empire on (Anabasis 1.8.13). Xenophon then – rather incontinently – informs us that the Great Kings' army numbered 900,000. Having then told us this, he goes on to retail the rather fantastic story that Cyrus orders Clearchus to march obliquely towards the enemy centre (and leave the river which was protecting the flank) so as to engage the King. Remember: the Greeks are 10,040 in number and holding the right wing. Were the opposing army far superior in numbers this order stands as pure farce. The Greeks and –
a fortiori – Cyrus' imperial ambitions, will have been cut to pieces.
It stands to reason that if the Greeks, marching obliquely towards the centre, could engage the Great King in the centre of his array, then Cyrus' army was not 110,000 strong. More like 30 - 40,000. Similarly, Artaxerxes' army is as near to 900,000 as my bank balance is to Donald Trump's.
Such figures need to be borne in mind when assessing the likely numbers killed. We have reasonable descriptions of the battle of Issus. Clear enough to indicate the utter shock that registered in Alexander's demeanour following the news that the effeminate despot, Darius III, had managed to march an army from Sochi, through the Amanian Gates and down to Issus to cut off the Macedonian's lines of supply and communications. Given the fact that the Bache pass in ancient times was devoid of the graded and sealed road that now traverses it, it is unlikely in the extreme to have admitted an army of 600,000 and its supply wagons in the time described. Divide it by a factor of eight to ten and this makes a little more sense.
Just on this, Arrian represents Darius' decision as the pure folly of a credulous and effette oriental despot whose mind is platicine in the hands of fatuous, flattering and sycophantic courtiers. Worse, that he has not the
obvious common sense to listen to the one fellow with any real tactical knowledge: a Macedonian deserter named Amyntas. I'm afraid that - in my view - this plays much better as a nice little after the fact story that neatly covers Alexander's gotten-behind-of royal posterior. Wouldn't do to have Alexander tactically outplayed.
The numbers we are given for casualties are, as a result, similarly fantastical. Arrian gives 110,000 Persian dead and fails to mention the Macedonian numbers aside from 120 "of distinction" who perished in the bloody melee that was the Pinarus as a result of Alexander's charge across the river allowing the Greek mercenaries to penetrate the desperate and discombobulated Macedonian phalanx. Curtius gives us 450 dead and 4,500 wounded.
Darius, seeing his left collapse chooses to depart the scene in his chariot – through 600,000 men mind. At this, the Persians incontinently flee the field. Arrian's description of this army attempting to flee the plain and choking in the mountain defiles renders – to my mind – any instant departure from the field by Darius rather difficult. Unless, of course, the numbers were nothing like 600,000 that is.
It is entirely conceivable that the Persians will have surrendered up many dead in the confusion. It is equally possible that so too did the Macedonians. There must have been severe fatalities amongst a phalanx split and broken upon the banks of the Pinarus and assailed by Greeks filled with murderous intent. The situation here was desperate and necessitated the Macedonian right to wheel left and come to aid of the ruptured centre.
As well, a "furious assault" by the Persian cavalry on the Macedonian left led to a "desperate" battle that was only ended when it was observed that the Persian centre and left was in total disarray.
I'd guess that 450 may well seriously understate the Macedonian dead.
There is another indicator: reserves. Between 334 and 331 (after Gaugamela), Alexander asked for and received - there is no better way to describe it - another army. The totals (after Bosworth,
The Legacy of Alexander) are in the order of 23,100 (including some 1,000 horse) of which Bosworth estimates Macedonian infantry to account for some 9,000. Some of these will have been to replace those left on garrison duty – in fact a healthy number one suspects. There is, though, little chance to my thinking, that any of those 9,000 phalangites will have found their way to this duty. Yet, by the time we reach Gaugamela, the Macedonian infantry numbers are somewhere near to 15,000 or so – remarkably similar to the estimates for the original army of invasion. These numbers are largely the same as those operating in India as well.
Some 9,000 Macedonian dead? I suppose the question is how many Macedonian infantry were sacrificed to garrison duties?
