Topic: gaugamela

[perseus]

Does anyone have accurate persian troop numbers for the battle of gaugamela?, everyone seems to disagree although i would give the persians a low of 52000 according to delbruck and a high of 91000 according to warry. we can safely discard anything above 100000 as fiction and biased, due to logistics of the time. it is certain that alexander was outnumbered at this crucial battle but just by how many?
warry puts persian cavalry at 35000 to alexander's 7000 but that seems way to high since the later seleucids were never able to field more than 10000 horse and how in the world would alexander be able to overcome a cavalry ratio of 5-1 especially taking into account the quality of persian horsemen. on the other hand delbruck's 12000 seems more in place since alexander would still be outnumbered by a quantitive 5000 horse.
warry puts persian foot at 56000, 2000 persian foot guards and 4000 greek mercenaries making up the heavy infantry force. with the kardakes destroyed at issus darius was forced to swell his infantry force with 50000 unreliable levies who were unsuited for a pitched battle against the macedonian war machine of alexander. delbruck puts persian infantry at 40000 to alexander's 40000, 2000 persian foot guards and 2000 greek mercenaries in two divisions, each presumably 1000 strong and 36000 asiatic levies as reserves. in cavalry it must have surpassed that of alexander, but in effective infantry it was at a discount, because its only hoplites were 2000 greek mercenaries and the royal body-guard.

[Strategy]

Depends what you mean by accurate.

Obviously, both Warry and Delbruck are guessing based on the ancient sources.

The ancient sources themselves are contradictory:

Arrian gives a total of 40,000 horse, and a grossly exaggerated 1,000,000 foot.
Diodoros gives 200,000 horse and 800 000 foot.
Justin gives 100,000 horse and 400,000 foot.
Curtius gives 45,000 horse and 200,000 foot.

Personally, I think many people (especially Delbruck) grossly underestimate the logistical abilities of Ancient people - and a foot number of at least 100,000 does not seem at all far fetched to me; especially considering that most of it was just useless rabble anyway. IMO, Curtius's numbers does not seem far-fetched, if one assumes the numbers includes servants, slaves, and hangers-on as well.

Luke Ueda-Sarsson has a good scenario discussion on the battle on his website.

[Demonic_Emperor]

Personally, I think many people (especially Delbruck) grossly underestimate the logistical abilities of Ancient people - and a foot number of at least 100,000 does not seem at all far fetched to me; especially considering that most of it was just useless rabble anyway. IMO, Curtius's numbers does not seem far-fetched, if one assumes the numbers includes servants, slaves, and hangers-on as well.

If that is so, then why weren't such high numbers reached for any other pre-modern battle? Even Napoleon Bonaparte couldn't do that (and I would imagine supplies were easier to come by in 1800s Europe than in 300bc Middle East).

[Strategy]

I assume you are thinking of the 1 million numbers? Those are - quite obviously - hugely exaggerated, of course. Such numbers were discarded by Delbruck - and rightly so. In many cases, in any case, one would suspect that the numbers quoted should simply be read as "a very huge amount", rather than an actual number. However, many of the "debunks" out there basically go beyond this to basically attack all the ancient sources - very often on the grounds that - "if I can't figure out how to do it, then it can't be possible" or "if it would be hard for us to achieve, then it must have been impossible for them".

In my personal opinion, the ancient sources seem pretty consistent in having army numbers of 70-100,000 as the upper limits for army sizes when you disregard the "incredible" or clearly unreliable sources. This is also the range that we see most big armies at in the next few thousand years - especially during the Napoleonic period when we again get states as powerful as those of the ancient world.

Especially in cases with internal lines of communication and largely pre-planned maneuvers as was the case at Cannae and IMO is also suggested to be the case at Gaugemela (e.g., the smoothening of the battlefield prior to battle), I see little reason to doubt ancient people's logistical capacity. After all - if people of the 18th century could manage it, why shouldn't the ancients have been able to? If there is one thing I'm pretty sure of, it is that human beings have not gotten any more intelligent in the few 1000 years. 

[Demonic_Emperor]

I assume you are thinking of the 1 million numbers? Those are - quite obviously - hugely exaggerated, of course. Such numbers were discarded by Delbruck - and rightly so. In many cases, in any case, one would suspect that the numbers quoted should simply be read as "a very huge amount", rather than an actual number. However, many of the "debunks" out there basically go beyond this to basically attack all the ancient sources - very often on the grounds that - "if I can't figure out how to do it, then it can't be possible" or "if it would be hard for us to achieve, then it must have been impossible for them".

I was also thinking of the 200,000 number and especially the 45,000 cavalry. Isn't that a little over the top?

In my personal opinion, the ancient sources seem pretty consistent in having army numbers of 70-100,000 as the upper limits for army sizes when you disregard the "incredible" or clearly unreliable sources. This is also the range that we see most big armies at in the next few thousand years - especially during the Napoleonic period when we again get states as powerful as those of the ancient world.

Especially in cases with internal lines of communication and largely pre-planned maneuvers as was the case at Cannae and IMO is also suggested to be the case at Gaugemela (e.g., the smoothening of the battlefield prior to battle), I see little reason to doubt ancient people's logistical capacity. After all - if people of the 18th century could manage it, why shouldn't the ancients have been able to? If there is one thing I'm pretty sure of, it is that human beings have not gotten any more intelligent in the few 1000 years. 

Oh, I agree with that. Certainly one should not underestimate ancient capabilities, and unfortunately there is a tendency to view ancients as being more primitive and ignorant than they actually were.

[Strategy]

I was also thinking of the 200,000 number and especially the 45,000 cavalry. Isn't that a little over the top?

The effective infantry wasn't very much - perhaps as few as  10,000, probably not more 20,000 men. That would give an effective fighting force of between 55,000 - 65,000. Include a couple of grooms for each of the horsemen, and you quickly get to 100,000 foot men. Baggage-bearers, porters, drovers to bring in the supplies will be needed - and then there is of course all the staff required to support the court of the High King in appropriate style (remember that both his wives, sister, and mother were all present at the camp). In addition, extra work force might have been brought in for the task of levelling the battlefield for the chariots.

Counting in all of the debris, the number of 200,000 might not - perhaps - be very far off from the real numbers. It's high - certainly - but not, IMO, inconceivable so.

Which of course is not the same as saying that it is actually correct. 

I often think about the situation at First Bull Run, where the Washingtonians brought along field glasses and picnic baskets to watch the battle. I imagine many ancient battles might have had similar situations, as the merchants, locals (well - those who had not run off), and camp servants/girls watched their fates being decided. And of course - occasionally a canny general would exploit their presence.