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Paralus wrote: Indeed! And we wouldn't have it any other way - if ever a military disaster needs management, we know under whose flag to be!

Reminds me of something that was said by the great Sir Harry Flashman, V.C.:

"Christ! If that's how we won at the battle of waterloo, thank God the French don't know or we shall have them at us again."

ATB

and God bless England!!!!!!

Regards,
Dean

I've not confirmed it yet but, I strongly suspect that NSW coach Murray may be a Pom. Investigations continue.

And, as one would expect, I live in NSW.

I shall write to him and enquire why it was that we were beaten by 1.72 men when we fielded thirteen.

The Poms, of course, participated in a game that witnessed an "own goal". It was the exception to prove the rule.

Paralus wrote:Before leaving this topic though, a couple of unanswered questions:

Efstathios wrote:The sources report 110-120.000 total number of Alexander's troops by the time of the campaign in India.Most of them where persians,bactrians e.t.c.

Where do the sources put these troops at the major engagement of the campaign, Jhelum?

Efstathios wrote:Athens had around 700.000 including the slaves and metoikoi.Athens could gather up a force of 60-80.000 hoplites.When they invaded Sicily they send 40.000

What is the basis for these figures? I can't rationalise Athens sending 40,000 citizens to Syracuse.

What do you reckon Efstathios?

Not heard from you for some time. Thought I might add to the debate a little. How many do you reckon Artaxerxes mustered against Cyrus (who surely knew what he'd face) at Cunaxa?

To put that in perspective, Xerxes GÇô leading an invasion against an upstart Greece took 1,700,000 infantry (according to Herodotus) and Darius III mustered 1,000,000 infantry and some 40,000 cavalry against Alexander at Gaugamela. So, given that Artaxerxes was raising an army in the heart of his empire to meet a direct challenge to his throne, what did he muster? According to Diodorus, some 400,000. Never to be outdone, Xenophon places 900,000 on the battlefield and 300,000 missing because Abrocomas arrived too late.

So how many do you reckon?

G W Cawkwell (in his excellent introduction to Xenophon's Anabasis) analyses not Xenephon's numbers but his recounting of the battle (as well as Ctesias', the king's physician GÇô present on the field) and reasons that Artaxerxes' army "numbered 120,000 at the most, possibly a very great deal less."

This in defence of the empire and his throne. An army raised from the heart of that empire to fight the one pitched battle that would decide the throne. And Cyrus marched on Babylon GÇô knowing what he faced GÇô with 10,000 Greeks and whatever else he could gather from Ionia.

What is about Greeks and Persian numbers? As Cawkwell notes: "The Greeks and Macedonians exaggerated wildly, for they seem to have regarded it as more glorious to picture themselves defeating a countless horde of worthless Asiatics than an efficient army of realistic proportions." Cawkwell goes on to note GÇô as I have GÇô the Diadochoi armies that operated after Alexander :

Of special relevance here, in the period of the successors of Alexander the Great Iran was drained of its military strength to the utmost, but the largest army we ever hear of was that of Antigonus in his attack on Egypt in 306, 80,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry. Apart from difficulties of finding an unfailing supply of recruits (familiar to those who have studied the lame efforts of Augustus to maintain no more than 150,000 legionaries), there was a compulsive reason for keeping ancient armies as small as possible. The larger the army, the greater the problem of supplying it.and the slower its movements.

Could not have written it better had I tried GÇô and I have. I believe there may be something in that for you Efstathios.