Quote Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius View Post
The whole of the point around huge numbers isn't that they fielded them, and kept them mobilised and supplied for months on end. In most of the examples they were gathered together for a very short time, and often rarely directed or commanded by anyone in particular. Even if they won the encounter, they'd disperse almost immediately because they'd exhaust the supplies in any one area.
200,000 or 300,000 men do not magicaly appear or disappear even if the army is disbanded. A track of this size would have an aproximate length of 200 to 300 km. If we do not assume an excellent system of roads that would allow to move this force on 4 or 5 parallel tracks, it would require about one week to gather them on one spot - what is the miminum requirement to use them in battle (and in this calculation the entire army still hasn't moved a single meter in any direction).

Moving around 100,000 men in three columns and uniting them on a spot in a single day is a difficult task, something that required a change of organization during the Age of Reason and someone particular in command. Assembling armies of the size the Romans want us to belive were day to day business in Barbarian Europe and Asia under the conditons of the time and state of organization is an impossibility.

And we still have to calculate what size of population we need to assume to field armies of these sizes....