Inferiority of middle eastern militaries in the ancient world?

[Beskar]

The problem is that they were far inferior to the west in military matters. But why? Why were their elite of the elite inferior to a levy of untrained Greek citizens?

That wasn't the case...

[|Sith|DarthRoach]

It wasn't? Marathon, Plataea and Thermopylae beg to differ.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Because we all know that battles only consisted of which soldier had the stronger will and the most talent. Commanders, terrain, geopolitics etc...all have nothing to do with it.

[Catiline]

It wasn't? Marathon, Plataea and Thermopylae beg to differ.

I don't think the Spartan hippeis counts as untrained levy.

[|Sith|DarthRoach]

I don't recall any Spartan hippeis at Marathon, and at Thermopylae they were far from the only Greeks. At Plataea, all Greeks got to slaughter some Persians.

[Catiline]

So you think the hoplites of Athens were untrained before Marathon? Or the other Peloponessians at Thermopylae?

[|Sith|DarthRoach]

They were largely untrained, yes. Spartans were seen as unique because they had a training program at all.

[Kagemusha]

They were largely untrained, yes. Spartans were seen as unique because they had a training program at all.

Incorrect.Spartans had a life long "training program": Agoge, compared to other Greeks being part time citizen soldiers. That does not mean the others would not have trained at all or gotten basic military training.Fighting in formation always needs some amount of cohesion so the force can act together. Most of the history, most men in armies have been levies or conscripts. Full time soldiers mostly only elites.

[Sarmatian]

It wasn't? Marathon, Plataea and Thermopylae beg to differ.

Thermopylae wasn't a Greek victory.

Marathon and Plataea indeed were decisive victories, from the Greek point of view. You have to understand that those battles didn't carry the same importance for the Persians and for the Greeks. For Greeks, it was a fight for survival, for Persian it was a punitive expedition against some "barbarians" on the fringes of the empire.

[Nowake]

I must be missing something in this thread, I am pretty sure you chaps know of the Greek institutions creating the ephebi.
The military training lasted three years, and one could not become a citizen and thus vote without undergoing it.

As trivia, their oath:

I will not disgrace the sacred arms, nor will I desert my comrade in arms wherever I may be stationed. And I will fight in defense of the sacred and the secular, and I will hand on my fatherland not less, but greater and better, as far as is in my own power and together with all my comrades, and I will pay thoughtful heed to whoever may be in authority over me, and to the established laws and to whatever laws may be established in the future. And if anyone overthrows them, I will not permit it as far as is in my own power and together with all my comrades, and I will honor our ancestral traditions as sacred.
Let these gods be witness:
Aglauros, Hestia, Enyo, Enyalios, Ares and Athena Areia, Zeus, Thallo ("Flourish"), Auxo ("Increase"), Hegemone ("Leadership"), Heracles, the Boundaries of the Fatherland, the Wheat, the Barley, the Vines, the Olive Trees, the Fig Trees.

[Hax]

Marathon and Plataea indeed were decisive victories, from the Greek point of view. You have to understand that those battles didn't carry the same importance for the Persians and for the Greeks. For Greeks, it was a fight for survival, for Persian it was a punitive expedition against some "barbarians" on the fringes of the empire.

Specifically, the Athenian support of the Ionian Revolt, which (as you should know) was put down pretty quickly. Even though the Greek effort to stop the Persian invasion was successful, there are a lot of factors that are left out of the equation here. The reason Xerxes pulled out of Greece was not because of some inherent Greek superiority, it was because there were problems in the east. Seriously, if Persia had thrown everything into conquering Greece, Sparta and Athens would have been left as burning rubble.

[Montmorency]

A ground force of hundreds of thousands and a navy of hundreds of ships isn't a trivial amount.

[Arjos]

Persia "invaded" pretty much out of principle, Greece was a rocky good for nothing land, Macedonia with all its pastures and mines was well into Darius' hands...
Egypt pretty much sucked far too many resources for the Persians...

[Hax]

A ground force of hundreds of thousands and a navy of hundreds of ships isn't a trivial amount.

The armies that were sent to Greece constituted about half of the total Persian armed forces, IIRC.

[Montmorency]

The armies that were sent to Greece constituted about half of the total Persian armed forces, IIRC.

There you go. One doesn't commit half of one's military resources to resolve such a minor matter.

[Hax]

There you go. One doesn't commit half of one's military resources to resolve such a minor matter.

Naturally, but it was not just a minor matter, it was a punitive expedition. However, it should be realised that the Persians were very much capable of crushing the Greeks. There were simply other things that did not allow them to do so at the time.

[Montmorency]

Well, if Syracuse sided decisively with the Greeks, maybe not even the full Persian force would not have been able to defeat the Greeks. And other such hypotheticals.

My point was that we shouldn't diminish the importance of the war in the Persian perspective, even if it was (much) greater in the eyes of the Greeks.

[Sarmatian]

A ground force of hundreds of thousands and a navy of hundreds of ships isn't a trivial amount.

Hundreds of thousands is an exaggeration, the real number was much smaller. At Thermopylae, even though Greeks sources mention such numbers as million or two millions of Persian, in reality the number was certainly less than one hundred thousands and that's including entire Persian expedition, not just fighters, but cooks, dancers, concubines, eunuchs, musicians etc...

[Montmorency]

Huh, that contradicts most estimates I've seen.

I'm assuming something in the range of 150000-300000, which is where most fall.

[Sarmatian]

Huh, that contradicts most estimates I've seen.

I'm assuming something in the range of 150000-300000, which is where most fall.

There are some estimates that say Persian army was 300,000 strong, indeed, but it is really an unlikely number, especially since most modern estimates of the battle of Gaugamela say Persian army was 100,000 strong. It is doubtful that Persian would muster 3 times that force for a punitive expedition at the very end of the empire.

[Montmorency]

Others' words serve best:

If it is true that the Persian army consisted of something between 50,000 and 100,000 fighting men, it follows not only that the Greeks were a nation of liars or dreamers, but also that the actions of the Greeks and of the Persians were totally irrational. One must wonder why the Persians should have sent by land an army that could have been easily transported on ships; why should the fleet have followed the army along the coast step by step for five months, suffering great losses because of storms; why should the Greeks have avoided any major military engagement on land for almost two years; why should the Athenians have abandoned their city to the Persians, allowing them to destroy it and massacre the poorer citizens who did not have the means to seek refuge abroad; why should the coalized Greeks have decided that the only possible strategy consisted of abandoning the country to the enemy, while trying to defend the line of the Isthmus of Corinth.

...

Very few scholars deny that the Persian fleet disposed of at least 600 triremes plus other warships and transports. Since a trireme could remain fit for action with 100 soldiers on board and could transport up to 300 passengers, a fleet of 600 triremes could have easily carried 60,000 soldiers with their supplies directly from Asia Minor to Attika. This is what was done in the case of the Persian landing at Marathon ten years earlier. In 480 B.C. the construction of two bridges across the sea at the Hellespont would have been a pointless gesture if the Persian army had been a force of 100,000 men or less.

...

According to Herodotos, the King had concluded that it was necessary for the national survival of Persia to destroy the power of Athens and Sparta; the course of history, as yet unknown in Herodotos' time, proved that the King was right. According to Herodotos, the King knew quite well that he was engaging in a risky enterprise, but decided that the gamble was reasonable if there was a chance whatsoever of success (VII 10, 50). King Xerxes was a rational ruler who decided that all the resources of his empire had to be engaged in a calculated risk, since the very existence of that empire was at stake. The King had in mind not only the support given by the Greek mainland to the revolt of his Greek subjects of Asia Minor and the humiliation suffered by the Persian army at Marathon in 490 B.C., but probably most of all the support given by the Greeks to the revolt of Egypt, a key province of the imperial system. Preparations for the Greek campaign were initiated immediately after the end of the campaign for the pacification of Egypt (VII 8). At that moment the King would have said, "All we possess will pass to the Greeks or all they possess will pass to us" (VII 12). It is currently assumed that Herodotos was totally ignorant of what is called philosophy of history, whereas here he predicted correctly history's future course. The Kings of Persia as well as the Greeks foresaw what finally took place about a century and a half later: if the Persian universal empire could not subdue the Greeks of the mainland, a Greek universal empire would replace it.]

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

Also note Lazenby, keeping in mind the above on naval considerations:

But does it follow that sea power was the
decisive factor in the war? Modern scholars often appear to think so: the
Persian army, we are told, depended on sea-borne supplies, despite the
fact that there is no evidence for this view, and that if the Persian navy
was anything like as large as Herodotos (cf. 7.89 ff.; 184. 1-2) and the
contemporary playwright, Aischylos, believed (cf. The Persians, 341-3),
it would have been manned by well over a quarter of a million men and
have needed every ounce of supplies it could carry or convoy for its own
purposes. It is also not explained how the Persian army could have
marched from Therma to Thermopylai, in 480, apparently without experiencing
any commissariat problems,despite its being out of contact with
the fleet for nearly three weeks ; or, for that matter, how, after the fleet's
defeat at Salamis and its consequent withdrawal to Asia Minor, a substantial
proportion of the army could have remained in Greece for nearly a year without starving

The only evidence for Persian
supply-ships is Herod [otos] 7.25.2 and 191.1, but the first passage refers simply to
the carrying of supplies to food-dumps in Thrace, and although in the second the
supply-ships are certainly accompanying the fleet, they are surely there to supply
the fleet itself.

[Sarmatian]

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.

[Catiline]

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...

[Lazy O]

The amount of persians given above is absolutely ridiculous. Do you even know how many Baivarabama were active at a given time? And no more were raised except in times of crisis (Alexander)

@Sarmatian; Greeks arent liars? Oh, that must be a genetic error that sets them apart from every other people on earth...

[|Sith|DarthRoach]

Sparta's male population was around 15,000.

Someone is ignoring the 150 thousand helots....

[Sarmatian]

@Sarmatian; Greeks arent liars? Oh, that must be a genetic error that sets them apart from every other people on earth...

Bah, the point was, Greeks are no different than any other nation in that regard.

Someone is ignoring the 150 thousand helots....

Indeed, there were around 150,000 helots, but not in the city of Sparta, rather in entire region Sparta controlled. Population of that region was probably around 250,000, again counting women, children and helots.

Neither Athens nor Sparta have ever fielded an army 75,000-100,000, so the mere size of the Persian army was shocking to them, which of course leads to inflated estimates.

Similarly, during the siege of Constantinople by the Ottomans in the middle ages, Constantinople defenders' estimates of Ottoman army varied from quarter of a million to a full million, while we know from the relatively accurate Ottoman sources that the size of Ottoman army was 100,000-110,000, and that's including 20,000-25,000 irregulars and non-combatants.

[Beskar]

Bah, the point was, Greeks are no different than any other nation in that regard.

I understood what you meant. There is a tradition in Europe of the size being significantly larger thus more to boast about. Which sounds better? Defeating 100,000 or 350,000.

[|Sith|DarthRoach]

Both sound ridiculous, tbh.

[Kralizec]

I don't recall any Spartan hippeis at Marathon, and at Thermopylae they were far from the only Greeks. At Plataea, all Greeks got to slaughter some Persians.

Spartan "Hippeis" were a de facto elite infantry corps, even though they were nominally "knights". They had horses, they just didn't care to fight on horseback.

Regarding Arsacids - those were conquered by Trajan.

As said, Trajan conquered the western part of their empire, briefly at that. Also, the first time Rome fought against them they suffered a humiliating defeat at Carrhae, while they had superior numbers at the time.

The later Sassanids hurled millions of men at Rome's borders in an attempt to restore the Achaemenid empire, and these were wiped out every time.

Don't pin me on specific battles because I can't name any, but the Sassanids came quite close to conquering Constantinople during their last war. The Byzantines were basically reduced to their European possessions, which were being threatened by migrating Slavs and steppe peoples. Only Emperor Heraclius' charisma and slashing of all non-critical spending enabled them to raise enough troops, and the following reconquest of their eastern territories was basically a do-or-die enterprise which miraculously succeeded. Sadly, this left both Constantinople and Persia so impoverished that neither was able to resist the Arab invasions.

[Montmorency]

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.

These are excerpts...

Seeing an invading army of around 75,000 was a huge shock.

Then the combined Greek force would have outnumbered the Persians.

You don't address the points I quoted, however. Just give them a glance.

And not for nothing was Herodotus known as the father of lies...

Give him credit for his proto-rationalistic approach; at least cut the guy some slack:

Now wheter Xerxes did indeed send a herald to Argos saying that which has been reported, and whether envoys of the Argives who had gone up to Susa inquired of Artaxerxes concerning friendship, I am not able to say for certain; nor do I declare any opinion about the matters in question other than that which the Argives themselves report...I am however bound to report that which is reported,though I am not bound altogether to believe it; and let this saying be considered to hold good as regards every narrative in the history: for I must add that this is also reported...