An Analysis of Herodotus in "The Persian Wars": 8. The Battle of Plataia

The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies ^ | 1960 | Professor Livio Catullo Stecchini

[SunkenCiv]

Mardonios had urged the King not to abandon the enterprise even after the debacle at Salamis. According to Mardonios there was a way to invade the Peloponnese even without a ferry and he argued with the King that he could proceed to that invasion the following year if he had 300,000 men, that is, half of the army that had come to Greece in 380 B.C.

Mardonios marched with the King's army up to Thessaly and there he went into winter quarters. The following spring he was joined by 40,000 men under Artabazos who had followed the King in his withdrawal with an original force of 60,000. According to Herodotus the forces of Mardonios were 300,000 infantry plus cavalry; of the infantry, 50,000 had been provided by the Greek allies. This means that Mardonios had under his command the normal full strength of the Persian army, even though the cavalry did not by far come up to the table strength of 50,000 horsemen. But Herodotus states that, at the battle of Plataia that closed the campaign of Mardonios, the cavalry was the part of the Persian army that proved the greatest challenge to the Greeks.

Mardonios had a table of organization requiring 300,000 infantry men and tried to fill it up by all means. Herodotus reports that he put in line Egyptians who had never been in an army and originally had served as embarked marines in the fleet...

His plan was to force all the Greeks north of the Isthmus, mainly the Athenians, to desert the rest of the Greeks, with the result that even the Greeks of the Peloponnese who were defending the Isthmus would have collapsed.

[SunkenCiv]

• An Analysis of Herodotus in "The Persian Wars": 4. The Battle of Marathon | 1960 | Professor Livio Catullo Stecchini [posted 06/01/2021]

[SunkenCiv]

Whoops, sorry about the HTML crap in the title.

[A strike]

Consider the source.

[Dr. Sivana]

Source notwithstanding, I sense more respect for the writings of Herodotus and what they meant than in modern western ancient curricula and Ivy League Classics departments that drop Greek and Latin as requirements.

[zeestephen]

Re: "300,000 men, that is, half of the army that had come to Greece in 380 B.C."

How did they feed 600,000 (or even 300,000) men while marching or sailing around the ancient world?

It is really hard to believe they had the logistical or food preservation skills to do that in 380 B.C.

Even if they confiscated 100% of the food that crossed the path of the army, it still does not seem possible to survive.

[SunkenCiv]

Take a look at the size of the Persian Empire, consider how large the Persian army must have been all the time (not just during a campaign of this kind), and note that the locals were bowing and scraping to sell them some of their own supplies to avoid having all of them commandeered. That "drank whole rivers dry" wasn't much of an exaggeration. It was a big force, and the logistical skills and civil engineering (bridges, roads, harbors) of the Persians was impressive, just as the Romans' was.

[LadyDoc]

you are correct. Greece imported a lot of their food, so the Persian Army couldn’t live off the land, but would have had to have their ships bring in supplies.

the Battle of Salamis decimated their fleet and probably contributed to their ultimate withdrawal.