[yarddog]

Herodotus placed Xerxes army at a million. Modern historians say it might have been as few as 35,000.

I suppose a million might be an exaggeration but the Persian Empire probably did have a massive army.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

But, did Herodotus see Xerxes Army first hand? Or was he just using Athenan propaganda ? It was big—real big, maybe 100,000 with an equal number of camp followers and support people.

[wally_bert]

Calypso Louie stretched numbers a bit too.

A million people can sound impressive.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Herodotus placed Xerxes army at a million. Modern historians say it might have been as few as 35,000.

An understandable exaggeration, since they didn't have a word that was the equivalent of "shitload."

[Spktyr]

Probably was convenient shorthand for “there were Persians for as far as I could see and it was pointless for me to try to count them”. These days, someone seeing the Persians in that quantity and asked to determine how many there were would probably reply that it was ALL the Persians. :P