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Great Greek Battles


Paal_101
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Nice Article Paul, although it would be insteresting to see the numbers (especially these suggested by Herodotus) to show how much of an underdog Greek were.

The army Xerxes brought to Greece with him numbered @ 1.300.000. (H) Which greatly ounumbered Greeks, and during battle of Salamis Persian fleet (Greatly reduced by storms and previous engagements) still outnumbered Greek almost 2 to 1.

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Thanks guys (y)

Now that you mention it, I didn't touch on numbers :)

Funny thing is the Herodotus numbers are impressive but hardly reasonable. The accepted number today is no higher than 300,000 in the extreme, with 200,000 being more likely. In fact there is good evidence that the Greeks out-numbered the Persians at Plataea, since Xerxes had taken many of his troops home with him. I've read stuff that says the Persians were possibly as "few" as 45,000 at that battle. But 70,000 seems to be the concensus vs 100,000+ Greeks.

But in any case, the Greeks were an impressive army to say the least.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Yeah, but why go through all the work of inventing when othe civs have invented all this cool tech and all you have to do is take it and modify it? :D That seems imminently smarter than reinventing the wheel so to speak :D Plus who had the best army until Napoleon? :P

Ah I like Greeks too, but Romans simply rule! 0 AD will prove this, literally :P

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One day you Hellenphiles shall awaken to the light of Rome and see the true glory of the Empire!  :D

Historically: On 22nd June 168 B.C., where Greece lost the battle of Pydna, at the bottom of Mount Olympus to four Roman legions (Rome only lost 200 men in this, battle BTW, but Greece lost nearly all of its Phalanx - likely more than 20 000 men).

And regarding Romans copying "everything": I can't remember having seen the fighting style of the roman army anywhere before... they did copy things, but the combined them in a way that made them superior - so, they improved things.

Also, I can't remember Greece having an empire that lasted 1,200 years and covered all Europe :D (the empire of Napoleon didn't even last 100 years, BTW)...

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Plus if you tack the Byzantine Empire onto the Romans its getting aweful close to 2000 years :)

Close ? The Byzantine Empire ended in 1435 A.D., and the foundation of Rome is set to 753 B.C. (that's what the legend says), or historically to the 8th century B.C. - that's about 2188 years... :D

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