Mithridatic Wars- Historical note

[seleucid empire]

it seems a shame that historians would inflate numbers for the sole purpose of exciting readers or glorifying Roman generals

[vartan]

it seems a shame that historians would inflate numbers for the sole purpose of exciting readers or glorifying Roman generals

seleucid empire, we're not talking about post-modern historians here. We're talking about historians of antiquity. These two sets of historians separated by time and space do not approach history the same way. Sorry for the sad truth, if this is indeed news for you.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

A lot of ancient "historians" (I use that term loosely) did not even view themselves as historians though so it would be unfair to judge them as such.

[Ludens]

Also, it's not as if the chroniclers of that period would have an easy time getting accurate records. They would have access to commentaries written by the general (Caesar was not the first to do this), but obviously these weren't impartial. Sometimes the best the historian could hope for was to find out how many slaves were sold afterwards. Of course, that number would have included stable boys, armourers, ox-cart drivers, etc. Eastern armies did tend to have a lot of those, so part of the inflation could have come from there.