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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 196042" data-attributes="member: 2205">Quite a bit, actually.How do I need to explain how they are tautologies?  The definition of tautology is sufficient, I think.  The supply systems and infrastructure of ancient armies is much less well known than the disposition of the armies themselves.  Therefore, dismissing the numbers based on that assumption is not warranted (speaking generically, of course.  In some specific instances that will not be true.  However, in most of those instances, the numbers reported seem to match up fairly well: SHARK's Cannae being a notable example, as are most Viking sagas, Irish and Angle-Saxon Chronicles, etc.)That's Joshua.  Now, before you start tossing around fancy-schmancy terms, you probably ought to learn what they mean.  At no point did I attack anyone personally, although I was quite disparaging on occasion about some insubstantiable arguments.  You're big to jump on the defense of these "quite sound" arguments.  In this thread so far, I have not yet seen one put forward, and in my opinion, they are not very sound and are not widely accepted in scholarly historical publications.  Do you know what they are even?It's fairly easy to judge the academic climate of ancient (NOTE: no one has discussed medieval historians to any great extent on this thread yet) history when your father is a professor of ancient history, you have a minor in ancient history and you read about half a dozen academic publications on ancient history on a regular basis.  Since you are so inclined to bring "credentials" into the debate, which is an implicit ad hominem attack, by the way, I say to you put up or shut up.  Show how you know so much more than I do, when I've consciously surrounded myself by the best scholarship one can find on the subject.  The fact of the matter is, only someone out of touch with the climate of current scholarship still holds to those beliefs.  Some decades ago, it was quite en vogue to disparage the ancient chronicles as wildly inaccurate and propogandistic.  Now that independent archeological research has been done, confirmation through other texts and a host of other disciplines has been brought to bear, the climate has changed considerably.  In general, most historic texts are believed to be relatively accurate unless there is a compelling reason to believe otherwise.If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a brilliant touch of irony.  Pretty pathetic.</blockquote>

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