Really only 300 Spartans

Mosquito

 edit: oops sorry Perseas I posted in a old window and did not notice I was just restating much of the same ground you posted.

It really depends on a couple of factors: what you choose to call a Spartan; which of the literary traditions/records you give more weight too; and any assumptions you make about the bias of those accounts.

Now in the strictest and most accurate sense there were very likely only 300 (+1) Spartans at Thermopylae, those being Leonidas and his bodyguard the 300 Hippes.

These men were the only ones you could call Spartans or more accurately Spartiates; that is full citizens of the polis Sparta, who would have undergone the harsh life of the agoge.

This is essentially what Herodotus claims only 300 Spartiates plus Leonidas.

If you look at the alternate version of Thermopile provided by Ephorus (via Diodorus), the implication is that Leonidas originally took with him in total 1000 Lacedaemonians: 700 Perioeci and 300 Spartiates (Diod 11.4.2, 11.4.5). Diodorus however states at 11.9.2 that only the 300 Spartiates remained at the end, 700 Perioeci Lacedaemonians being sent back with the other Peloponnesians.

Herodotus indirectly implies the same thing at 7.228.1 where he quotes the epitaphs for the fallen as saying 4000 Peloponnesians fought. These conflicts with earlier total of only 3100 Peloponnesians (7.202); but  add in the missing 700 Perioeci and 4000 sounds like a rather fair round number for 3800.

In general the Spartiates certainly have some number of Helots with them as baggage carries, and some seem to have been killed. But did they fight, were they killed as just that many more Greeks by the Persians etc, is difficult to say.  The Helots would have had little in the way of arms or armor their relationship to their Spartiates oppressors was generally one of hatred (unlike the rather more personal and potentially varied or even close relationship between the other Greeks and the assistants who might have been slaves or sometimes younger relatives).  But in any case the assistants of the Hoplites in general were at best light infantry and not a skilled force at that, one designed to fight in a unit or such.  In the case of Helots it is hard to see that the Spartans would have had any interest in training the helots to fight or arming them in any really effective way.

At 7.229.1 Herodotus seems to imply only one helot per Spartiate, and the particular helot in question fled the battle.  Herodotus also notes that the Persians accidentally confused some dead helots for Spartiates (8.25.1), but for all practical purposes they could have simply been trapped and killed as just that many more Greeks.

Considering that the Spartiates were fighting mostly light infantry and archers, the combat potential of the helots is illuminated by considering the famous victory of Iphikrates over a Spartan regiment during the Corinthian war (about a century after the Persian Wars). Iphikrates using peltasts supported by regular Athenian hoplites succeeded in largely destroying the Spartan unit in a running battle with his missile armed skirmishers. Now the Spartiates would almost certainly have had a helot or two on hand as servants, yet these several hundred men played no actual role in the fight, they could not and did not act as any kind of effective light infantry screen for the Spartiate hoplites.

Some more edits:

Emperor Barbarossa

I just don�t see any reason to diminish the Persian that far.

It would imply they decided to completely ignore the lesson of Marathon; they needed more than 2:1 odds to beat hoplites. Considering the Greeks could field around 30,000 or so hoplites Xerxes invasion seems rather foolish.

Sparten

What makes you sat the Emimpire was overextended?

Alexander could field 60,000+ troops for his invasion of Persia, without a secure naval supply line.

The Persians were rather good at logistics, had regular access to naval supply, had almost unlimited wealth, controlled directly (or at least access to) most of the key grain exporting regions of the Eastern Med, had been preparing the invasion for years � it seems unrealistic to suggest that at best they only sent 20,000 more troops than Alexander.

Mosquito

I am aware of that; perhaps foremost of all right now would be P Hunt in �Slaves, Warfare and Ideology in the Greek Historians�.

I disagree, however. One of the biggest problems with the ideal is that there is simply real evidence to that effect.  I simply cannot think of a situation where the Spartans faced with a tactical situation that clearly called for light infantry, and in fact used a body of helot light infantry. The helots were absent against  Athenian Peltasts in the 4^th century, at Plataea the Spartans did send their supposed force of helot skirmishers to deal with anyone � thay in fact specially called for the Athenian arches�

Sure, later in the 4^th century the Spartans do start using helot troops, but the critical point is as freed soldiers, and preferably serving a long way from Sparta and on high risk ventures (Brasidas� Thracian campaign, or in Asia Minor for example).

Yes but would the same Germans, give those quisling prisoners rifles, and deploy them with a hand-full of SS troops to fight Allied troops who would free said prisoners? 

But in any case I need to check a few references, but I think I can make a fairly good case that the helots had in general very little love for the Spartans.

The equation is no so stark, don�t forget the Perioeci, I rather suspect they fulfilled the additional policing role you would assign to the supposed favored and trained helots.

First I certainly did not mean to suggest I accept Herodotus at face value, I am not defending 2.5 million men, even 250,000 is probably too high unless you include all sailors and rowers in the fleet and sundry camp followers�. I do think however reducing Xerxes army to 40-80,000 on the basis of an assertion of logical impossibly is untenable.

Taken a whole (particularly your second point), you seem to be arguing that the Persians packed up the army and its supplies at Persepolis and marched all the way to Greece, that is not the case however.

I don�t understand the basis for your conclusion that the Persians were operating with exterior lines (of supply?). They were operating inside the empire and very much attached to their supply lines and depots right up to the Macedonian boarder.  In reality the Greek army at Thermopylae was farther from is supply base than the Persians were.

Consider (all references from Herodotus):

1. The Persians prepared for the invasion for four years, before mobilizing and amassing their troops for the final march on Greece in year 5 (7.20.1).  Note Moreover that the first concentration point of the army was Cappadocia. Thus until than most units were effectively dispersed, and even after the concentration in the south of Asia Minor, the Persians seem to have picked up units form the western parts of the Empire as they traveled (that is the Thracians were not marched to Cappadocia and back).
2. The Building of the bridge over the Hellespont, and the construction of the Athos canal and the bridging of the Strymon were undisturbed and carried out in an orderly fashion (7.22.1). The Persians established operational bases at Elaeus and the Chesonese, supply depots were maintained for the works by the Phoenicians (7.23.4 in other words sea based supply from the one of the two main supply reserves established by Xerxes- see below).  The Persians operated with complete impunity, no Greek force ever ventured beyond Thessaly, Persia had complete naval superiority and the freedom to use naval supply.
3. Over the 4 year build up Xerxes amassed supplies for his army at Phoenicia and in Egypt (7.25.1). Considering the bulk of those supplies were essentially not perishable either the military wears, grain, dried beans or lentils and dried fruit I don�t see any reason to argue a lack of modern tech was a problem.
4. The Persians established supply depots along the route of march, notably in Thrace, Tyrodiza, Doriscus, Eion and Macedonia.
5. Also it is worth noting that the fleet is clearly indicated as operating in disconnected squadrons, and only collecting for reviews, repairs and battle � although Herodotus does not say as much I see no reason to doubt that the army operated in the same fashion.

Overall the 2003 invasion of Iraq is perhaps the worst possible example for perspective.

Xerxes invasion was not a phased, Rumsfeld-esq campaign based on the lasted hi-tech mumbo-jumbo theory of warfare (that would be Darius� sea-born dash across the Aegean) lighter and faster and all that�; Rather the Xerxes spent 4 years setting up for a very large invasion, that occurred on his own time table exactly when he had all the logistical pieces in place. The US was rushing itself in the invasion in 2003, and had not spent 4 years building up troops and supplies. Besides the logistical requirements of the modern US army per capita (or rather per soldier) are fantastically beyond the same per trooper requirements faced by Xerxes, not to mention Xerxes had no fuel constrains to worry about nor Tanks, nor F-15�s etc.

Nor do I see any particular reason to sight the lack of canning as an important bar to Persian armies. Perhaps if the average Persian grunt expected fresh beef for dinner maybe it be a factor, but seeing as the likely Mediterranean diet of grain, dried lentils or beans and dried fruits would do just fine I see no particular reason doubt that the Persians did indeed have the capability to build the supply depots Herodotus notes.  Even then you are ignoring the evidence from shipwrecks and literary sources that oil packed fish and salt beef was exported and traded, that is it could be effectively preserved and stored over the long term.

Finally consider Athens in the late 5^th century a fair amount; half or more of it 300,000 to 400,000 residents was fed on imported food stuffs � the fifth century Classical world could feed several hundred thousand people by sea-based imports. Xerxes had in effect no financial bar to his desires, unlike the US in 2003 Xerxes was not borrowing money , but rather drawing on an immense reserve of capital. If he wanted to burn his resources I don�t see any reason why a man who commanded the agricultural Mecca of Egypt and was sitting on piles of silver and gold and chose too invest 5 years in planning and execution could not put 100,000 � 200,000 men in the field.