...big numbers that are inflated.
The size of armies, in ancient times, were always exagerated, most were little better than a mob with no standard ogranization.</p.
You got it. Flavius Josephus is a known historian who could not write down a number without first multiplying by something between four and ten. Even the size of mountains is subject to this bizarre inflation in his work.
Evidently, his disease was pretty common in ancient and classical times.