The Three Hundred Spartans

A new movie looks pretty interesting, about the story of the 300 Spartans who fought Xerxes army of 1.7 million men.  The trailer to the movie "300" is here, and this is one I want to see.  Below is an update of a post on the subject, with new information added.

In 481 BC when the Persian king Xerxes was going to invade Greece for conquest, he assembled a huge army from his tributary states. They were so numerous that it was hard to count them. So they counted out 10,000 and had them stand in a densely packed circle. Then they built a waist high wall around them. Then they had the rest of the troops enter the walled circle until it was full, and called it 10,000 per filling. The Persian army filled the circle 170 times, for a head count of 1,700,000!!  Of these there were 80,000 cavalry, 20,000 charioteers and camel riders.

This was and is the largest army ever assembled in the history of the world.  The Persian army was made up of armies from each province or satrapy of the kingdom, and my theory of the purpose of the head count is that this technique was to verify the number of soldiers that each provincial governor said he had contributed, which might have been an inflated number.

This illustration from The History of the World, by Ridpath, 1915.  The Persian navy sailed through a specially built canal in the Athos peninsula which had been in preparation for three years. 

The Persians continued via a land march to the Pass of Thermopylae, where they were faced by 300 Spartans and 8700 Greek soldiers from allied cities.  These were an advance force representing the Greek cities, because troops from the other cities were occupied and could not assemble in time.  Xerxes demanded the surrender of the Greek force, proclaiming that the Persian arrows would fill the sky.  The king of the Spartans replied "Good, then we'll fight in the shade." 

The Spartans, including the king of Sparta, held off the Persians assaults one after the other, with great slaughter of Persians.  The Persians finally got through the pass, at a loss of 20,000 killed, and the Spartans killed to a man.  The Persians found a mountain trail around the pass, and assembled a force behind the Spartans lines, and attacked from both sides. Before the final assault the Spartans sent most of the other Greeks to rally the other Greeks to oppose the Persians, but all the Spartans stayed to face the final Persian assault, and perished.

One thing the Spartans did, besides buy time for the Greeks to get organized,  was to throw off the Persian plans.  Xerxes had spent years preparing for the invasion, and had filled vast stores of food warehouses along the route.  When a marching army of 1.7 million men has to stay in one place and be fed, that can be a logistical problem.

The Persians then met the Athenian fleet, who they greatly outnumbered.  The Athenian fleet mauled the Persian fleet, and the main force of the Persians returned to Persia, leaving an army of 260,000 to finish the conquest in the Spring.  They were routed by a Greek force of 108,000 soldiers at Platea. What the Greeks  had discovered was a new strategy of fighting, the phalanx, and they had perfected its use during decades of Greek against Greek warfare.

Comments

[Joshua]

The book -Gates of fire- by Steven Pressfield is a great book about the Spartans and the battle of Thermopylae

[andrew lubin]

Read the Pressfield book "Gates of Fire"
the best book written about the Spartans and their courageous stand. It's Honor - Courage - Committment to the ultimate.
Molon Labe !

Not 1,7 millions. Look up in wikipedia, they have a fair and neutral covered article on why it is less than 1,7 millions. Just search thermopylae on google you will see the link.

The count I cite comes from Herodatus, who died about 60 years after the Persian invasion. He was able to talk to people who were alive at the time of the battles. He is very specific about the counting of 10,000 soldiers, building a wall around them, and then running the rest of the army through the counting ring.

I'm not a professional historian, but I tend to distrust historians who say that ancient people could not have done something because the modern historian can't figure out how they did it. They figure there was not enough water for that many troops, so there must not have been that many troops. Xerxes was planning the invasion his whole life, and putting plans into action for 4 years prior. They set up huge stores of food for the army in lands they would march through, and built a canal through a penninsula for the navy. The navy was vast, and could have been carrying even more food and water for the troops. I'm going to give Herodatus the benefit of the doubt, and assume he knows what he was talking about.

The same reasoning could be used to say that, if we didn't have proof that they did, the Egyptians did not have the technology, metal tools, manpower, infrastructure, and funds to build the pyramids.

The Celts did not have the science, metal tools, stone moving technology, manpower, and resources to build Stonehenge, except we have the proof that they did.

Plus, more and more Herodatus' facts and figures are being confirmed by archeology, so I'll stick with his numbers.

[D G]

The reason they doubt Herodatus' numbers for the army is that he has a very heavy Greek bias (being greek himself this makes perfect sense to glorify a victory his people had over a hated enemy). He wanted it to seem as though the greeks defeated an army over a million men to make the eventual victory all the more epic. Also another indicator is that modern historians believe that the ancient greek word Herodatus used for his calculations might have been mis-translated. It used to be translated into a measurment meaning 10,000 but they believe that it might actually mean an amount closer to 2,000 making the size of 1.7 million shrink to around 360,000. Despite all of that the number isn't terribly important, the main idea is that the greeks were outnumbered several times. The victories were still impressive.

[brentacon]

even if the army was 1.7million though almost 2.5millenia ago would have been virtually impossible. still is no were even close to the largest armies every assembled.

world war 2 the germans assembled approx 7million troops

and the British assembled 5.5million.

not sure on the americans or russians but they must have been close.

[john]

I have read on sevral occasions that the largest single army ever assembled was that of the red army during the second world war, numbers being around the 25 million mark!