Quote Originally Posted by Sarmatian View Post
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.
And not for nothing was Herodotus known as the father of lies...