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QuoteReplyTopic: The Battle of Gaugamela Posted: 27-Mar-2008 at 23:15
Originally posted by Darius of Parsa
Originally posted by Penelope
Originally posted by Darius of Parsa
Using your estimates as a base, I have calculated how much of a difference 1,000 men can affect two battles between 30,000 Macedonians and 100,000 Persians and 31,000 Macedonians and 100,000 Persians. If there are 30,000 men, 1 Macedonian would have to kill 3.333 Persian men. If there are 31,000 Macedonians, each man would need to bring death upon 3.226 enemies. This is quite a large difference considering the circumstances of life or death. It also depends on how Alexander uses the 1,000 troops. If he decided to use the troops as sheep fodder for example, the outcome would be much different.
Thats not true at all, when taking into consideration that most of the Persian army fled when Darius did. The fleeing army still outnumbered the Macedonians 10 to 1 but was in complete disarray. Not to mention the 15 elephants that Darius fielded ended up killing Persians instead of Macedonians. It definately would not have made a difference. And Keep in mind that almost all of the Persian casualties happened while the Macedonians were in pursuit of them. Guagamela was in effect, the mirror image of Issus.
One thousand men have turned the side in battles in some instances. Furthermore, the example was not an example of Guagamela, but rather between 31,000 Macedonians and 100,000 Persians. Your estimates are all over the place. 31,000 vs 100,000 is NOT 10 to 1. There is nothing depicting the role of the Persian war elephants at Guagamela, or how many casualties they inflicted.
You obviously have not done your homework mr. darius. Since there is no way that we will ever agree on anything, or even except opinions, i suggest that we refrain from acknowledging one another.
1 out of every 5 people were from the Persian Empire. 1 million men is incorrect. There were 100,000 at most, though I myself think the Persian army was around 50,000-70,000.
Perhaps I simply missed it, not tracking well today, but what do you mean 1 in 5 people?
The Persian Empire covered nearly 3 million square miles and contained about 20 million people. With the estimated popualtion in 500 B.C of only about 100 million, the Persian Empire held perhaps one-fifth of the people on the planet. Most of the people within the Persian Empire were working citizens. The army would only be a small portion of the population. To have an army assembled of 1 million warriors at one location, simply does not make sense.
Ah, okay. Thats what I thought, thanks for putting up with my dumb questions.
I think anyone that reads about the battle/Alexanders campaigns etc. would agree there was no way Darius had 1 million men in the field. Concievably the persians could have had that number of potential soldiers to call up, (2 million if one uses the guide of 10% of their total population as a maximum using the total population figure you provided; which is the most common strategy I've come across) but again there is a difference between the amount of soldiers a state can potentially call up and the number it can support. This often comes up in Punic war discussion and roman manpower.
The population of the Persian Empire in 500 B.C was 20 million. By the time Alexander arrived at Guagamela, he already had a large portion of what used to be the Achaemenid Persian Empire under his control. Darius obviously could not obtain troops from these regions.
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