Ancient people could actually mobilize more % of population than modern countries, though naturally the absolute numbers remain lower. For the most known examples, Rome during the war with Pyrrhus and II Punic War.
Some places had incredibly high efficiency of agriculture, for example at the beginning of 2 millenium BC the city of Ur had only around 5% crops be returned to farmers to sustain them (of course they also recieved other things but the efficiency was still crazy for that level of development), so Ur could extend control over much of Mesopotamia back then despite having population of around 60000 (to be fair it was huge city for that time).
Same we see in the ancient China. For example, kingdom of Qin in the beginning of reign of Ying Zheng (later known as the First Emperor) could mobilise around 400000 people every year for at least few weeks for either warfare or public works, and it was sparsely populated compared to central kingdoms.
Feudalism with its typical decentralisation seen the numbers go down significantly. Even for the richest realms in Europe mobilising more than 1% of population was basically impossible, and the armies routinely numbered from few hundred to few thousand people. For example, the biggest battle in european middle ages, battle of Grunwald was fought in 1410 and there was between 27000 to 65000 participants (as usual the lower number is way more probable).
Breaking moment was new mobilisation doctrine invented by French revolutionary Lazare Carnot, called Levee en Masse, basically it was about designing supply lines and dedicated equipment manufacturing that could see large number of completely unskilled people equipped and trained in the shortest possible time. It allowed France to win the revolutionary defense war and then roll over entire Europe by Napoleon I despite having much less population than the opponents combined. That docrine is btw still in usage, modified of course and the industrialisation in XIX century given it truly terryfying effectivness as seen in both world wars, though today the sophistication and cost of modern weapons is restricting its usage.
Incredible. Where can we read more materialist analysis of feudal and slave systems? Particularly interested in class relations. This stuff is just so hard to find online.
I got that from old polish books like “Zapomniany Świat Sumerów” which i’m pretty sure aren’t translated to english. One is hungarian, and it is translated to english, now author at the very beginning says he’s not a marxist and his book won’t be marxist, but it looks like either some formality to be published in the west or selfdelusion, since compared to newer ones i read it is pretty good, though it suffers from the obvious fixation on the upper class nearly all historians of ancient Rome have.
Interesting. Herodotus gives some really incredible numbers for Xerxes invasion force – around one million if I remember correctly – and a lot of people chalk it up to him being basically unreliable about a whole lot of things (flying snakes, ants as big as dogs, and so on). But maybe his totals are actually closer to the reality of what a giant empire like Persia could raise?
According to Herodotus Persia mustered 1,700,000 infantrymen, 80,000 horsemen, 1,207 animals, and 3,000 cargo ships at the same time and in one place. So no, not really.
It’s not entirely impossible that Persia could be able to overally muster 1800000 men, since the total population was around 50 million, but gathering them all in one place and leading such mass of people to the small, far and poor Greece was nonsense, not to mention the logistics was impossible on this scale.
Most likely total Persian force in entire war was between 120000 to 180000, which is still huge number for those times and place, so no wonder Greeks freaked out. Note that even those numbers probably never gathered in the one place at the same time.
At the battle of Platea Greeks scraped the barrel completely and might actually even have numerical advantage.
Yes, I suppose logistics are the big problem with Herodotus’ numbers. I imagine supply for an army that size would be complicated even with modern transportation, let alone when everything had to be transported by foot, horse, or (sail and oar-powered) ship.
Herodotus does mention that Xerxes’ army was starving towards the end, but I guess that too doesn’t argue for an a nearly two-million man army.
Ancient people could actually mobilize more % of population than modern countries, though naturally the absolute numbers remain lower. For the most known examples, Rome during the war with Pyrrhus and II Punic War.
Some places had incredibly high efficiency of agriculture, for example at the beginning of 2 millenium BC the city of Ur had only around 5% crops be returned to farmers to sustain them (of course they also recieved other things but the efficiency was still crazy for that level of development), so Ur could extend control over much of Mesopotamia back then despite having population of around 60000 (to be fair it was huge city for that time).
Same we see in the ancient China. For example, kingdom of Qin in the beginning of reign of Ying Zheng (later known as the First Emperor) could mobilise around 400000 people every year for at least few weeks for either warfare or public works, and it was sparsely populated compared to central kingdoms.
Feudalism with its typical decentralisation seen the numbers go down significantly. Even for the richest realms in Europe mobilising more than 1% of population was basically impossible, and the armies routinely numbered from few hundred to few thousand people. For example, the biggest battle in european middle ages, battle of Grunwald was fought in 1410 and there was between 27000 to 65000 participants (as usual the lower number is way more probable).
Breaking moment was new mobilisation doctrine invented by French revolutionary Lazare Carnot, called Levee en Masse, basically it was about designing supply lines and dedicated equipment manufacturing that could see large number of completely unskilled people equipped and trained in the shortest possible time. It allowed France to win the revolutionary defense war and then roll over entire Europe by Napoleon I despite having much less population than the opponents combined. That docrine is btw still in usage, modified of course and the industrialisation in XIX century given it truly terryfying effectivness as seen in both world wars, though today the sophistication and cost of modern weapons is restricting its usage.
Incredible. Where can we read more materialist analysis of feudal and slave systems? Particularly interested in class relations. This stuff is just so hard to find online.
I got that from old polish books like “Zapomniany Świat Sumerów” which i’m pretty sure aren’t translated to english. One is hungarian, and it is translated to english, now author at the very beginning says he’s not a marxist and his book won’t be marxist, but it looks like either some formality to be published in the west or selfdelusion, since compared to newer ones i read it is pretty good, though it suffers from the obvious fixation on the upper class nearly all historians of ancient Rome have.
Interesting. Herodotus gives some really incredible numbers for Xerxes invasion force – around one million if I remember correctly – and a lot of people chalk it up to him being basically unreliable about a whole lot of things (flying snakes, ants as big as dogs, and so on). But maybe his totals are actually closer to the reality of what a giant empire like Persia could raise?
According to Herodotus Persia mustered 1,700,000 infantrymen, 80,000 horsemen, 1,207 animals, and 3,000 cargo ships at the same time and in one place. So no, not really.
It’s not entirely impossible that Persia could be able to overally muster 1800000 men, since the total population was around 50 million, but gathering them all in one place and leading such mass of people to the small, far and poor Greece was nonsense, not to mention the logistics was impossible on this scale.
Most likely total Persian force in entire war was between 120000 to 180000, which is still huge number for those times and place, so no wonder Greeks freaked out. Note that even those numbers probably never gathered in the one place at the same time.
At the battle of Platea Greeks scraped the barrel completely and might actually even have numerical advantage.
Yes, I suppose logistics are the big problem with Herodotus’ numbers. I imagine supply for an army that size would be complicated even with modern transportation, let alone when everything had to be transported by foot, horse, or (sail and oar-powered) ship.
Herodotus does mention that Xerxes’ army was starving towards the end, but I guess that too doesn’t argue for an a nearly two-million man army.
An army who is losing on enemy territory will usually starve no matter its size.