23-11-2004 07:52									#151
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quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse I think the Macedonian army has been reliably estimated at between 35 and 50,000. The point was that the Persian army was significantly larger, outnumbering the Macedonian at up to 4 or 5 to 1 in cavalry for example at Issus and Gaugamela. The Persian army was very large partly because the point was not to fight but to frighten with a large display of force. The expectation was an enemy would be intimidated and turn back or seek peace. The problem the Persians always had with Greek armies was they chose to fight and that showed up the weaknesses in the Persian order of battle. In some ways it was a huge culture clash.

Ehm, The Persians had Greeks as their main fighting force against the Macedonians so it wasn't that much of a culture clash...
And yeah I know most tribesmen weren't that impressive fighters vs an organized army, but still... It's hard to imagine how in those times with those means of transport and communication they managed to field and feed such huge armies, and the upkeep!!

Btw how can you positively estimate an army number? There aren't enough archaeological finds to extrapolate that. Maybe a good terrain study might do the trick, I don't know

	23-11-2004 15:04									#152
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Trajanus, I suppose an army could carry with it supplies for a limited time. But they still would have to be resupplied. One could just imagine the traffic over a very inadequate road system of carts moving back and forth supplying such a huge army. I suppose one could conduct studies to see just how large an army a certain logistics environment could support.

	23-11-2004 18:08									#153
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quote: Originally posted by MarkG yeah, on what grounds do egyptians keep on selling tickets to the Pyramids? they should be free to the world!

The fact that it's rather difficult to remove the Pyramids from sovereign Egyptian territory?

	23-11-2004 18:46									#154
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If Pekka wasn't there we should make a new one.. wonder how he was created in the first place?

	23-11-2004 23:17									#155
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quote: Originally posted by MarkG molly, i fail to see what's gay about the achilles/patroclos vase you link too....

It's illustrating the older/younger relationship between Achilles and Patroklos, not the sexual nature of their relationship.


Patroklos is the bearded one, having his wounds dressed by the youthful clean shaven Achilles.

	24-11-2004 04:14									#156
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quote: Originally posted by Trajanus Ehm, The Persians had Greeks as their main fighting force against the Macedonians so it wasn't that much of a culture clash...

No that isn't right - Greek hoplite mercenaries were a major part of the force at Granicus but after that not so significant - and they were unreliable and acting under Persian orders.

On the culture clash point, the Greeks and Persians saw warfare in very different ways for cultural and historical reasons and this has a huge influence on all the battles. What made the Macedonians lethal was partly their battle order which combined solid heavy infantry with superb shock cavalry, but also the their death or glory, or fight to the death attitude to battle. This was not the Asian way and completely mystified Darius II and the Persian nobles.