Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rashak Mani" data-source="post: 186626" data-attributes="member: 642">Shark... you have to have  in consideration some factors that havent been well mentioned:   Food... Ancient Rome being an Empire was better suited to transporting food from high production areas (Egypt) to other areas.  Medieval Europe had a lower population due to bad harvests it has had in the past and dependence on meat and wheat.  Wheat isnt a very efficient crop.  Asia´s rice in comparison allowed for much larger populations.    Medieval Europe was a very fragmented society... those small feudal estates had very small capacity to arm and field troops.     Cannae... Rome did have more chance of expendable troops of course... but Cannae if my memory doesnt fail me was a defensive battle and inside Roman Territory.  60k - 90k wouldnt be so hard to get with many irregular or militia troops joining in regular army units.  I would have to read Cannae again thou.  Yet I tend to agree with those that said historians are notorious exagerrators. Politicians too tend to distort things for their own gain.    Persia... was a major empire at that time... no wonder Rome didnt win easily.  Besides horsemen being more common in that empire which made the infantry based army of the romans somewhat vunerable.      Back to Roman military... the soldiers were a tough lot... very very professional and very brutally trained.  No other nation had comparable professional armies as did rome.  Disposable certainly not... plentiful yes...  but the cost of maintanence of this military machine was one of the reasons for Romes downfall... excessive expenditure and dependence of war for economic improvement.   For an interesting account of the Roman style of War and the toughness of the Roman Legionary read about the invasion of Anglesly in Wales:<a href="http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/ancient/anglesey/main.asp" target="_blank">http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/ancient/anglesey/main.asp</a>    So the numbers are impressive but certainly not absurd... one must just take into account some historical facts ....</blockquote>

Verification