The Battle of Gaugamela

One million, no. Quite a few, yes. Gaugamela I think remains the biggest infantry battle in history in terms of combatants involved in a single day. I think it was 80,000 Macedonians et al vs. close to 300,000 Persians. I've also heard that there was half a million involved on both sides. Please someone provide more accurate numbers in case I'm off, thanks.

I say 15,000 Macedonians and 30,000 Persians would be more likely. How the hell did you expect to feed an army the size Konstantanius writes before the Napoleonic era (and canned food) in a desert no less is beyond me.

Alexander's army is said to have been 40,000 strong allthough it is more than likely that his army was much smaller than that. The Persian force could not have been more than 250,000 deep. 200,000 would be the closest figure.

Yea but how do you feed an army of more than 100,000 men ?In medieval times the largest armies were usually no more than 100,000

If anyone can tell me how you could feed an army of more than 30,000 in that era in a desert, then I am all years, or in this case eyes.

Probably not since I am not sure if they were invented yet.

Originally posted by Sparten If anyone can tell me how you could feed an army of more than 30,000 in that era in a desert, then I am all years, or in this case eyes.

Originally posted by Sparten I say 15,000 Macedonians and 30,000 Persians would be more likely. How the hell did you expect to feed an army the size Konstantanius writes before the Napoleonic era (and canned food) in a desert no less is beyond me.

Alexander started out from Macedonia with definetely more than 15,000. Large armies had operated in the area before Alexander, i.e. Hittites, Assyrian Empire, NK Egyptian, Achaemenid Persian.
The area in question is fertile and dotted with cities. A large army would exhaust the resources in one area if it stayed too long but, the key here being mobility, a large army on the move would be able to forage indefinetely. Also, key was naval support as long as the army paralled the coast-line. The fact that Alexander besieged Tyre for 8 months would've been impossible without total sea supreamacy. Ships could provide fresh horses and supplies, evacuate the wounded, etc. The times the Macedonians suffered  from terrain they were away from flat, riverine plains or the coast, i.e the mountains of Kush and the Great Salt Desert in the middle of Iran (Dasht i Kavir?).

Yes, it has happened: in the era before canned food (chic) large armies were repeatedly assembled and put into the field for prolonged amounts of time. Whether you want to believe it or not is a different story.

At Gaugamela Darius was still the King of Kings. The Persians had suffered two previous serious defeats at Granicus and Issus but each time Darius got away, retreated, and put a new army in the field. At the time of Gaugamela Darius still had the resources of 2/3 of the Achaemenid domain to his disposal thus could field a considerable army. It is after the third loss at Gaugamela that his nobility will turn against him and he will become a hunted man. More importantly the loss at Gaugamela opened up the road to Ctesiphon, Persepolis, and Darius' treasure that will fall almost in its entirety in Alexander's hands. Without his gold and with his best nobles against him, Darius' resistance efforts were doomed.
Anyway, these are the numbers the Greek historians that accompanied Alexander inform us about. If you have others, please present them ; it's very possible that there might  entries in Persian and/or Indian chronicles about the incident. Alexander carved quite a myth in the area and there must be stories about Gaugamela in the folklore.


Edited by konstantinius - 07-Nov-2006 at 04:18