THE STRENGTH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY AT ISSOS

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agesilaos
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Re: THE STRENGTH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY AT ISSOS

Post by agesilaos »

Even the Persians would not drag totally useless mouths around, and the Greek sources always have useless hordes in mind when they speak of Persian armies, it is easy to be seduced by their bias since we have nothing to balance it and the fact remains that the Persians lost each battle. It has to be borne in mind that Dareios could not have got his cavalry to the field and kept them there without a small army of servants, so the levies were essential to any overall plan.
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
Hando
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Re: THE STRENGTH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY AT ISSOS

Post by Hando »

agesilaos wrote:Even the Persians would not drag totally useless mouths around, and the Greek sources always have useless hordes in mind when they speak of Persian armies, it is easy to be seduced by their bias since we have nothing to balance it and the fact remains that the Persians lost each battle. It has to be borne in mind that Dareios could not have got his cavalry to the field and kept them there without a small army of servants, so the levies were essential to any overall plan.
When you say "and the fact remains that the Persians lost each battle" I assume you mean that the fact that the Persians lost each battle reinforces our already biased view (already influenced by our reading of the biased Greek sources), that the Persian levies and the Persian army in general were totally useless. But that in actual fact, they were NOT totally useless because not even the Persians would drag around totally useless mouths. Just wanted to make sure I had you right.
agesilaos
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Re: THE STRENGTH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY AT ISSOS

Post by agesilaos »

That's right, it is hard to keep in mind that there was probably no contemporary army that could have coped with Alexander and his army.
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
Hando
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Re: THE STRENGTH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY AT ISSOS

Post by Hando »

Hello, this question is regarding Issos and not Gaugamela. I received a reply from Jona Lendering to my question regarding Issos.
Here is the question I asked him. This will be followed by the two answers he gave me, but I am not exactly sure what he mean, because his answers seem hurried.

First my question to him was...
"How many Persian troops fought at the battle of Issos and how many Macedonian troops fought there?
I ask this because most scholars think Persians outnumbered the Macedonians, but you said the opposite. I refer to your statement in this link.
http://www.romanarmytalk.com/19-greek-m ... ander.html"

Lendering's first reply was
"That is not what I am saying. I am saying that not all Persian soldiers could be deployed, which gave the Macedonians an advantage, as they were better protected. At Issus, there is only about two kilometers of land; the Macedonians could put all their soldiers in the field and had some people as a reserve. The Persians could field just as many soldiers on the same area, and had to leave tens of thousands in the rear. They never fought or pushed the Persian soldiers in the front towards their death."
So what do you think Lendering is saying here exactly? Obviously, you cannot read Lendering's mind, so my questions are asking for your opinions on what you think he means.
1)Is he saying that the Persians outnumbered the Macedonians at Issos? This first question is important to me, because in the above link to the Roman Army Talk Forum, he had said "I did not read Delbruck, but in my own book on Alexander, I have reached more or less the same conclusion (that the Persians were outnumbered by the army of Alexander): not all Persian could be deployed."
So I am trying to figure out whether now in his reply to me he is now saying that the Persians actually outnumbered the Macedonians at Issos and not the other way around?
2)And then, when he says "the Macedonians could put all their soldiers in the field and had some people as a reserve. The Persians could field just as many soldiers on the same area, and had to leave tens of thousands in the rear." is he saying that the number of Persians troops who were deployed and actually got to fight at Issos was EQUAL to the number of Macedonian troops who were deployed and actually got to fight back?
3)When he says "They never fought or pushed the Persian soldiers in the front towards their death" by "they" is he referring to the "tens of thousands of Persian reserve troops that were in the rear" of the Persian fighting front line troops, who either never got the chance to fight or pushed the Persian troops in front of them towards their deaths? I want to be sure I know who he is referring to when he says "they."

Because I was not exactly clear as to his exact meanings, I asked him my question again, but in a different way. I asked
"You said not all Persian could be deployed at Issos. So then how many Persians did Darius actually deploy? In other words, how many Persians did Darius put on the field and how many Macedonians/Greeks did Alexander put on the field? In other words, how many Persians actually fought at the battle of Issos and how many Macedonian/Greeks fought against them? Were they equal in terms of numbers or did one side outnumber the other on the field of battle? Can you provide actual numerical estimates?"

His reply was
"Nobody can offer accurate estimates. We ought to have a large scale experiment to check whether the numbers in our sources are plausible. That being said: the battlefield was the same for both sides, so the number of soldiers that could be placed between the sea and the mountains was the same. Inferior Persians versus superior Macedonians; the Persians incapable of retreat, because they were obstructed by the extra soldiers. That's basically what caused the Persian distaster."
1)Do you think he is saying that the number of Persian troops and Macedonian troops who were deployed and actually got to fight each other at Issos was equal to one another, because the battle field was hemmed in by the sea and mountains for both sides? I was not asking him for "accurate" estimates as he seems to have assumed.
2)And when he then says "Inferior Persians versus superior Macedonians..." what does he mean by "inferior Persians" and "superior Macedonians"? Is he saying the Persians had an inferior number of troops and the Macedonians had a superior number of troops, or is he talking about the quality of the troops? Ie the inferior fighting quality of the Persian troops versus the superior fighting quality of Macedonians troops?

I think I know what he means, but I just want to make sure and confirm and to do that I'd obviously like him to confirm these, but since he did not reply, I'd like to ask for your opinion since I think that in order to understand what Lendering means exactly, one needs to have a deep understanding of the battle of Issos.
Thank you
Last edited by Hando on Sat Aug 09, 2014 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
agesilaos
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Re: THE STRENGTH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY AT ISSOS

Post by agesilaos »

1) Yes, overall the Persians outnumbered the Macedonians but
2) The constraints of the battlefield meant that the frontlines were of equal length and assuming equal intervals the same number of troops
3) The extra Persian numbers could nit assist their cdomrades in the front line and formed a useless depth; Jona is a bit awry with the pushing as the Oriental way of war had no concerted push either with body or weapons.
4) Yes within the constraints of density
5) Quality
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
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