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On February 25 2011 12:02 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 10:49 allecto wrote:
I would estimate the maximum of standing Roman soldiers at any one time to be upward of 500,000 (50 legions at 6,000-8,000 per plus auxiliary troops, cavalry). Roman Republic is no where even close to that number though. Han armies in particular campaigns were listed at 200K, and that is just one sphere. I never learnt what the total sum was but I imagine it would be at least double this. So maybe perhaps at the absolute height of Roman military output, they were comparable, but in BCE, not even close. You have to also consider historical inaccuracies too. I mean, the Persian army was listed in the millions by Herodotus (lol).
To Adaptation: I suggest taking a serious look at bumping up Sertorius, who I think is the second greatest Roman general. Imo, Africanus needs to be dropped a lot.
Han Xin, Nurhaci, and Tran Hung Dao are the top Asians, for sure. Well it is highly likely that the biggest army (as in total military and as field army) Rome had was actually BC, specifically civil war between Antonius and Octavianus. So that much for that strange BC argument. And yes inaccuracies and exaggerations are problem. The only reason we know Roman numbers pretty well is because they mostly give number of legions and not the number of troops and the size of the legion is well known from many literaty/non-literary sources. Sizes of enemy armies are exaggerated by Romans also very often. So why would I trust Chinese crazy numbers from original sources that are known for inflating numbers ?
Speaking of evidence... you know there's no evidence that Octavius/Octavian was ever called or bore the name Octavianus? Just a thought to throw in.
And besides, what else ARE you going to trust if not primary sources? Are there any other ways? Yes, one can be skeptical and clearly historians should support such skepticism, but that doesn't mean we have better sources... Besides, it's not like it's completely unlikely that the Chinese had numbers ranging in the 200,000 range for armies considering Asia's bloody history and how populous it was.
Also, I like the biased language use. "Chinese crazy numbers" implying insanity and impossibility while "exaggerated by Romans" implying half truths and half lies. At least claim some semblance of fairness when judging please? It makes you seem very biased using such language.
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Can't believe nobody has mentioned Marcus Agrippa, the main reason Octavian/Augustus actually became Emperor in the first place. Had to rescue Octavian and won battles the future Emperor couldn't. Also built many public works in Rome that Augustus was given credit for.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Agrippa_Gabii_Louvre_Ma1208.jpg/400px-Agrippa_Gabii_Louvre_Ma1208.jpg)
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By far Alexander the Great, im his #1 all time fanboy
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I have no idea if it's been mentioned yet in regard to the Rome/Han argument yet, but after Augustus Rome's military strength was reduced to and set at 28 legions for the next two and a half centuries. Assuming the full compliment of 6,000 troops per legion, that's less than 170,000 soldiers total for the Roman army circa 200 AD. A) Legions were never at their full 6,000 troop strength, and B) 600-800 of those would've been noncombatants like engineers, doctors, etc.
Now if you're looking at something for what Rome could field circa 200 BC (which is around when the Han Dynasty was founded), check out the Romans at the Battle of Cannae. It was by far the largest army the Romans had ever fielded. It was 216 BC. And it was around 85,000 soldiers. Including Italian allies.
No question that the Han armies were larger than the Roman armies.
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Greatest general of all time is most likely Alexander The Great, he is called the great for a reason.
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On February 25 2011 14:35 Enyalus wrote:
I have no idea if it's been mentioned yet in regard to the Rome/Han argument yet, but after Augustus Rome's military strength was reduced to and set at 28 legions for the next two and a half centuries. Assuming the full compliment of 6,000 troops per legion, that's less than 170,000 soldiers total for the Roman army circa 200 AD. A) Legions were never at their full 6,000 troop strength, and B) 600-800 of those would've been noncombatants like engineers, doctors, etc.
Now if you're looking at something for what Rome could field circa 200 BC (which is around when the Han Dynasty was founded), check out the Romans at the Battle of Cannae. It was by far the largest army the Romans had ever fielded. It was 216 BC. And it was around 85,000 soldiers. Including Italian allies.
No question that the Han armies were larger than the Roman armies.
The actual legion comprised about less than 1/2 of the actual combatants on the Roman side. You need to double that number (at least) to account for cavalry, auxiliary troops, scrimmagers, etc.
I haven't really kept up with this argument too much, as it is inconsequential to this debate. But the mere fact that 400,000 Roman soldiers were on one battlefield at least legitimizes Rome's ability to field that amount BCE. Now if the argument is that Rome had a regular army deployment nearing numbers above 100,00, that is just nonsense, and it is obvious that the Han dynasty had a longer sustained single deployment number.
As for Agrippa, he was a great admiral, and I think that is why he isn't listed in the generals list. Sort of a semantic issue, imo, but he would've certainly been brought up early otherwise.
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On February 25 2011 14:49 allecto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 14:35 Enyalus wrote:
I have no idea if it's been mentioned yet in regard to the Rome/Han argument yet, but after Augustus Rome's military strength was reduced to and set at 28 legions for the next two and a half centuries. Assuming the full compliment of 6,000 troops per legion, that's less than 170,000 soldiers total for the Roman army circa 200 AD. A) Legions were never at their full 6,000 troop strength, and B) 600-800 of those would've been noncombatants like engineers, doctors, etc.
Now if you're looking at something for what Rome could field circa 200 BC (which is around when the Han Dynasty was founded), check out the Romans at the Battle of Cannae. It was by far the largest army the Romans had ever fielded. It was 216 BC. And it was around 85,000 soldiers. Including Italian allies.
No question that the Han armies were larger than the Roman armies. The actual legion comprised about less than 1/2 of the actual combatants on the Roman side. You need to double that number (at least) to account for cavalry, auxiliary troops, scrimmagers, etc. I haven't really kept up with this argument too much, as it is inconsequential to this debate. But the mere fact that 400,000 Roman soldiers were on one battlefield at least legitimizes Rome's ability to field that amount BCE. Now if the argument is that Rome had a regular army deployment nearing numbers above 100,00, that is just nonsense, and it is obvious that the Han dynasty had a longer sustained single deployment number. As for Agrippa, he was a great admiral, and I think that is why he isn't listed in the generals list. Sort of a semantic issue, imo, but he would've certainly been brought up early otherwise.
What you're referring to, I think, was the clause during the Republic era whereby Italian allies had to match what the Roman legions fielded. That was completely done away with after Italy's Social War and definitely not in effect under the Empire. There were auxilias to fill a similar role, but they were definitely smaller in size than the Italian alae.
I...am completely unconvinced of that 400,000 number. Is there an actual source for that or is it on Wikipedia? No contemporary sources mentioned the size of the armies. Look at any Roman army fielded until 410 AD. I doubt any of them are even half that size. O.o
Otherwise, I totally agree with you that typically Han army size > Roman army size.
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On February 25 2011 15:33 Enyalus wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 14:49 allecto wrote:On February 25 2011 14:35 Enyalus wrote:
I have no idea if it's been mentioned yet in regard to the Rome/Han argument yet, but after Augustus Rome's military strength was reduced to and set at 28 legions for the next two and a half centuries. Assuming the full compliment of 6,000 troops per legion, that's less than 170,000 soldiers total for the Roman army circa 200 AD. A) Legions were never at their full 6,000 troop strength, and B) 600-800 of those would've been noncombatants like engineers, doctors, etc.
Now if you're looking at something for what Rome could field circa 200 BC (which is around when the Han Dynasty was founded), check out the Romans at the Battle of Cannae. It was by far the largest army the Romans had ever fielded. It was 216 BC. And it was around 85,000 soldiers. Including Italian allies.
No question that the Han armies were larger than the Roman armies. The actual legion comprised about less than 1/2 of the actual combatants on the Roman side. You need to double that number (at least) to account for cavalry, auxiliary troops, scrimmagers, etc. I haven't really kept up with this argument too much, as it is inconsequential to this debate. But the mere fact that 400,000 Roman soldiers were on one battlefield at least legitimizes Rome's ability to field that amount BCE. Now if the argument is that Rome had a regular army deployment nearing numbers above 100,00, that is just nonsense, and it is obvious that the Han dynasty had a longer sustained single deployment number. As for Agrippa, he was a great admiral, and I think that is why he isn't listed in the generals list. Sort of a semantic issue, imo, but he would've certainly been brought up early otherwise. What you're referring to, I think, was the clause during the Republic era whereby Italian allies had to match what the Roman legions fielded. That was completely done away with after Italy's Social War and definitely not in effect under the Empire. There were auxilias to fill a similar role, but they were definitely smaller in size than the Italian alae. I...am completely unconvinced of that 400,000 number. Is there an actual source for that or is it on Wikipedia? No contemporary sources mentioned the size of the armies. Look at any Roman army fielded until 410 AD. I doubt any of them are even half that size. O.o Otherwise, I totally agree with you that typically Han army size > Roman army size.
The source I've read to get those numbers (approximation of course) is Appian. If I remember correctly, it is something like 20 legions for each side, which makes sense since there were about 50 total legions at the time. Now bear in mind that legion numbers don't count the auxiliary troops that accompany any legion nor the cavalry and thus adjustments are made which in essence
doubles the size of the legion (again an approximation). I'd have to read Appian again, but I'm guessing that at least cavalry numbers were mentioned, probably stating them in the 10-20K range for each side. So taking a conservative estimate of 20 legions * 6,000 + 10K cavalry, you only need 70K auxiliary which makes sense with the historical analysis of army compositions.
Again, this gets to the 200K range which is for both sides, landing the big 400K number.
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On February 25 2011 12:26 StorkHwaiting wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 12:02 mcc wrote:On February 25 2011 10:49 allecto wrote:
I would estimate the maximum of standing Roman soldiers at any one time to be upward of 500,000 (50 legions at 6,000-8,000 per plus auxiliary troops, cavalry). Roman Republic is no where even close to that number though. Han armies in particular campaigns were listed at 200K, and that is just one sphere. I never learnt what the total sum was but I imagine it would be at least double this. So maybe perhaps at the absolute height of Roman military output, they were comparable, but in BCE, not even close. You have to also consider historical inaccuracies too. I mean, the Persian army was listed in the millions by Herodotus (lol).
To Adaptation: I suggest taking a serious look at bumping up Sertorius, who I think is the second greatest Roman general. Imo, Africanus needs to be dropped a lot.
Han Xin, Nurhaci, and Tran Hung Dao are the top Asians, for sure. Well it is highly likely that the biggest army (as in total military and as field army) Rome had was actually BC, specifically civil war between Antonius and Octavianus. So that much for that strange BC argument. And yes inaccuracies and exaggerations are problem. The only reason we know Roman numbers pretty well is because they mostly give number of legions and not the number of troops and the size of the legion is well known from many literaty/non-literary sources. Sizes of enemy armies are exaggerated by Romans also very often. So why would I trust Chinese crazy numbers from original sources that are known for inflating numbers ? Too bad Roman legions were rarely at full strength. Zing! Also, prove that the steppe tribes could not field those numbers, mcc. You talk a lot of smack about proving this or that, yet you have no proof for any of your theories about Chinese troop numbers or steppe nomad troop numbers. Point out some sources you think are credible for Chinese military history. Go ahead. Point em out.
Not my job to post sources for you. It was your claim Chinese fielded armies 4-5 times that of Rome, you have not supported it with evidence yet. The burden is on you. I would like to reiterate, you have posted nothing (and I do not mean excluding things I doubt, but really nothing) that would indicate any such number. By sources I accept basically anything except posts in some other forum debate unless they are specified precisely and sourced, wiki is ok. After you post them we can discuss them.
On February 25 2011 12:26 StorkHwaiting wrote:
Btw, Battle of Phillippi if it had 200k troops per side, proved that Rome could field army of that size with their population/wealth.
So if you think that's accurate, how do you turn around and claim you think Han dynasty troop numbers are inflated, when like you say, the empires have a similar population? Kind of hard to make your point, yet argue that it wasn't possible to field armies that size, yes?
Not hard at all. I think they were able to field 200000-500000 armies. I would even concede 1mln if I saw believable evidence for it. But those numbers necessarily will be close to the total number of soldiers in the whole empire. The numbers I doubted were numbers where 200000-300000 armies were cited as relatively small field armies compared to big total overall numbers. Or some hundreds of thousands killed Xiongnu warriors, when 10000 was considered big force by the Mongols 1000 years later. But as a general rule, never trust blindly any original ancient(even non-ancient) source without very good reasons.
On February 25 2011 12:26 StorkHwaiting wrote:
And sadly, Battle of Phillippi was the absolute peak of Roman deployment. So, it's a one-time thing, rather than regular field army size, which is exactly the point I was making. Chinese armies of pre-AD era were routinely larger than anything Rome fielded. I picked that time because vast majority of the Roman and Carthaginian generals being listed in the top were from the pre-AD era, so I don't get why you're so inane as to not understand why I would make that specification.
But again, your MO seems to have been proving your lack of reading comprehension throughout this debate, rather than actually making any cogent points.
Edit: And wth do you keep trying to mention this Battle of Actio? There's no such battle. Do you mean the Battle of Actium? And why would you keep mentioning that battle? It was a naval battle that didn't have numbers anywhere near the hundreds of thousands. Nice example...
First, Philippi was not an absolute peak. Contrary to your statement Actium (sorry for the typo) had large army deployment, there just was no battle between those ground armies, please read on it before you again claim something untrue.
Second, nice to see you backpedalling and switching goals. Your original statement was not "routinely larger" but "4-5 times larger". I comprehend your point about why you limit it to BC, it makes sense if you are talking about particular general, but your statement was about Roman armies in general without any limitations and Roman armies existed also in AD. But as I said it does not matter, there are enough big battles in BC.
As for my points. I made 2-3 points. Rome's population in general was bigger (in BC it was more equal at the peak, and of course lower the more you go into the past). Rome was wealthier (lets skip this as this would end up like that 100 page debate), I concede that there is not enough solid proof either way, just some indices. My not really a point(more like not believing your argument) is that China did not field 4-5 times bigger field armies than Rome and for that the burden of proof is on you.
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On February 15 2011 13:59 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Ulysses S. Grant - Shiloh, Memphis, Vicksburg. Need I say more? Beat Lee because he knew how.+ Show Spoiler +William T. Sherman - Knew what war would cost, nobody believed him.+ Show Spoiler +Robert E. Lee - No debate.+ Show Spoiler +Winfield S. Hancock - Never gets enough credit by Historians I think. I mean without him Gettysburg could have easily been decided differently.+ Show Spoiler +
He beat Lee cause he had 2x the troops. Lee raped and was norths first choice for general
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On February 25 2011 12:39 ghrur wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 12:02 mcc wrote:On February 25 2011 10:49 allecto wrote:
I would estimate the maximum of standing Roman soldiers at any one time to be upward of 500,000 (50 legions at 6,000-8,000 per plus auxiliary troops, cavalry). Roman Republic is no where even close to that number though. Han armies in particular campaigns were listed at 200K, and that is just one sphere. I never learnt what the total sum was but I imagine it would be at least double this. So maybe perhaps at the absolute height of Roman military output, they were comparable, but in BCE, not even close. You have to also consider historical inaccuracies too. I mean, the Persian army was listed in the millions by Herodotus (lol).
To Adaptation: I suggest taking a serious look at bumping up Sertorius, who I think is the second greatest Roman general. Imo, Africanus needs to be dropped a lot.
Han Xin, Nurhaci, and Tran Hung Dao are the top Asians, for sure. Well it is highly likely that the biggest army (as in total military and as field army) Rome had was actually BC, specifically civil war between Antonius and Octavianus. So that much for that strange BC argument. And yes inaccuracies and exaggerations are problem. The only reason we know Roman numbers pretty well is because they mostly give number of legions and not the number of troops and the size of the legion is well known from many literaty/non-literary sources. Sizes of enemy armies are exaggerated by Romans also very often. So why would I trust Chinese crazy numbers from original sources that are known for inflating numbers ? Speaking of evidence... you know there's no evidence that Octavius/Octavian was ever called or bore the name Octavianus? Just a thought to throw in.
What ? If you mean that we only know it from original sources. Yes, but we have multiples of them also non-literary and there is not much reason to doubt that, unlike a lot of ancient army counts.
On February 25 2011 12:39 ghrur wrote:
And besides, what else ARE you going to trust if not primary sources? Are there any other ways? Yes, one can be skeptical and clearly historians should support such skepticism, but that doesn't mean we have better sources... Besides, it's not like it's completely unlikely that the Chinese had numbers ranging in the 200,000 range for armies considering Asia's bloody history and how populous it was.
Of course that the base are primary sources, but they should be analyzed for bias and exaggeration, compared to actual possibilities determined by population, available logistics, etc.
Oh, and I do not doubt they had 200000 armies, even bigger probably.
On February 25 2011 12:39 ghrur wrote:
Also, I like the biased language use. "Chinese crazy numbers" implying insanity and impossibility while "exaggerated by Romans" implying half truths and half lies. At least claim some semblance of fairness when judging please? It makes you seem very biased using such language.
I used mostly inflated and exaggerated also for the Chinese sources, I just got fed up with constant blind quoting of those numbers, hence my use of crazy, its implication was more towards people quoting the numbers than the Chinese authors. As I said note that I use inflated and exaggerated otherwise.
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On February 25 2011 15:33 Enyalus wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 14:49 allecto wrote:On February 25 2011 14:35 Enyalus wrote:
I have no idea if it's been mentioned yet in regard to the Rome/Han argument yet, but after Augustus Rome's military strength was reduced to and set at 28 legions for the next two and a half centuries. Assuming the full compliment of 6,000 troops per legion, that's less than 170,000 soldiers total for the Roman army circa 200 AD. A) Legions were never at their full 6,000 troop strength, and B) 600-800 of those would've been noncombatants like engineers, doctors, etc.
Now if you're looking at something for what Rome could field circa 200 BC (which is around when the Han Dynasty was founded), check out the Romans at the Battle of Cannae. It was by far the largest army the Romans had ever fielded. It was 216 BC. And it was around 85,000 soldiers. Including Italian allies.
No question that the Han armies were larger than the Roman armies. The actual legion comprised about less than 1/2 of the actual combatants on the Roman side. You need to double that number (at least) to account for cavalry, auxiliary troops, scrimmagers, etc. I haven't really kept up with this argument too much, as it is inconsequential to this debate. But the mere fact that 400,000 Roman soldiers were on one battlefield at least legitimizes Rome's ability to field that amount BCE. Now if the argument is that Rome had a regular army deployment nearing numbers above 100,00, that is just nonsense, and it is obvious that the Han dynasty had a longer sustained single deployment number. As for Agrippa, he was a great admiral, and I think that is why he isn't listed in the generals list. Sort of a semantic issue, imo, but he would've certainly been brought up early otherwise. What you're referring to, I think, was the clause during the Republic era whereby Italian allies had to match what the Roman legions fielded. That was completely done away with after Italy's Social War and definitely not in effect under the Empire. There were auxilias to fill a similar role, but they were definitely smaller in size than the Italian alae. I...am completely unconvinced of that 400,000 number. Is there an actual source for that or is it on Wikipedia? No contemporary sources mentioned the size of the armies. Look at any Roman army fielded until 410 AD. I doubt any of them are even half that size. O.o Otherwise, I totally agree with you that typically Han army size > Roman army size.
Actually auxillia headcount is estimated to be at least as big as legions. Roman troop numbers are mostly estimated from legion numbers. Of course in the middle of the bloody war you cannot just multiply it by 5000 and add auxillia, but in peace times or at the start of the war it is often good enough estimate. If you want similar counts, Actium (grr, I have no idea why my hands type Actio all the time) is another one. After that the threats are more spread out, and so are the army deployments, but some big armies are deployed few more times that we know of. I'll add planned operation against Markomani that turned into bloody pacification(genocide) in Pannonia.
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After reading a bit about the Han empire it becomes clear to me that Rome and Han obviously had very different tasks for their armies. It would have been irresponsible for any roman imperator to concentrate several hundred thousand professional soldiers in one corner of the empire, when the threats were so widespread (only in civil war, as we have seen in the posts above).
I would have agreed with Stork much earlier if I had known the Han additionally used conscription, while the later legions entirely consisted of professionals. It is funny that Stork blamed the Marian reforms for Rome's downfall, when the Han history shows that conscription is just as dangerous for an empire, if not more (revolts). And that he says that asian generals knew that less soldiers can sometimes provide more stability for an empire, when Augustus reduced the standing Roman army size to a much lower level than that of the Han-empire, while both had comparable populations. See what Augustus did there?
I still see 2 empires of similar size with similar resources and technologies, but in a very different environment, which is reflected in their armies.
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United States1543 Posts
Ender wiggin would wipe the floor with bean.
OT Alexander the great absolutely no question. Crushing the biggest empire on earth. Winning battles convincingly outnumbered by 10x, never lost a battle. For all those saying robert e lee he was questionably the best general on his own side.
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Mcc you said What ? If you mean that we only know it from original sources. Yes, but we have multiples of them also non-literary and there is not much reason to doubt that, unlike a lot of ancient army counts.
so using this logic, if you go back to my link, post 1408, you can see the guy stated on this issue of the Chinese number by citing multiple sources with similar numbers, your doubt should be cleared.
As for Rome being wealthier, i think this is also a misconception, if you go to the same link (sorry for using the same site, but the sources they use is just way more comprehensive from other places i've seen), on page 91-92, esp. on pst 1376, Han was at least equal in terms of GDP to their Roman counterpart.
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On February 25 2011 19:03 FindMeInKenya wrote:Mcc you said Show nested quote +What ? If you mean that we only know it from original sources. Yes, but we have multiples of them also non-literary and there is not much reason to doubt that, unlike a lot of ancient army counts.
so using this logic, if you go back to my link, post 1408, you can see the guy stated on this issue of the Chinese number by citing multiple sources with similar numbers, your doubt should be cleared. As for Rome being wealthier, i think this is also a misconception, if you go to the same link (sorry for using the same site, but the sources they use is just way more comprehensive from other places i've seen), on page 91-92, esp. on pst 1378, Han was at least equal in terms of GDP to their Roman counterpart.
Post 1378 says exactly nothing, please cite correctly. Also the arguments presented by both sides are very selective in their sources. It is extremely hard to estimate the GDP of empires 2000 years back, and I wouldn't believe any of it.
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And i also did say please read page 91-92 to have a better understanding how they come up with the GDP of both nations.
However, i Do agree with you that it is extremely hard to estimate the GDP correctly, but with the archeological findings of the production out put of both nations, we can roughly estimate and compare the wealth of the nations, which is why i bring you to post 1376, where the guy go through serious length to show the production capacities of the 2 powerhouses.
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Have people forgot about George Washington? Where's the American pride?
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On February 25 2011 20:44 FindMeInKenya wrote:
And i also did say please read page 91-92 to have a better understanding how they come up with the GDP of both nations.
However, i Do agree with you that it is extremely hard to estimate the GDP correctly, but with the archeological findings of the production out put of both nations, we can roughly estimate and compare the wealth of the nations, which is why i bring you to post 1378, where the guy go through serious length to show the production capacities of the 2 powerhouses.
Do we have different post numbering?
Post 1378
Roman vs Han will probably end up as a proxy war.
If you can magically transport two armies together, you'd basically have superior infantry vs superior cavalry/missiles.
I'd call it a tie and it comes down to leadership and luck.
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And what about Patton ? He was an absolutly awful person but a great man of war !
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/ulysses-s-grant/ulysses-grant.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sherman/pictures/general-william-tecumseh-sherman.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.historyguy.com/biofiles/General_Robert_E_Lee.jpg)
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