Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
Others' words serve best:



Though I'm not sure about that last bit...

Also note Lazenby, keeping in mind the above on naval considerations:
Unfortunately, that is wishful thinking. When the first sentence starts with "if it isn't true, than Greeks are liars" you can easily deduce it's not serious scholarly work.

Greeks aren't liars, it's just that at that time, size of the armies were estimated with the naked eye, there usually weren't any written documents. Compared to the Middle East, Greece was sparsely populated. Population of Athens at its peak was around 300,000 people, including women, children and about a 100,000 slaves. Sparta's male population was around 15,000. Seeing an invading army of around 75,000 was a huge shock.