Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
<<Hdt. 7.181.1 Hdt. 7.184.5 (Greek) >>Hdt. 7.189.1

7.183.3 It was Pammon of Scyros who showed them where in the strait the reef lay. After sailing along all day, the foreign fleet reached Sepias in Magnesia and the beach between the town of Casthanaea and the Sepiad headland.

ch. 184 7.184.1 Until the whole host reached this place and Thermopylae it suffered no hurt, and calculation proves to me that its numbers were still such as I will now show. The ships from Asia were twelve hundred and seven in number, and including the entire host of nations involved, there were a total of two hundred and forty-one thousand and four hundred men, two hundred being reckoned for each ship. 7.184.2 noteOn board all these ships were thirty fighting men of the Persians and Medes and Sacae in addition to the company which each had of native fighters; the number of this added contingent is thirty-six thousand, two hundred and ten. 7.184.3 To this and to the first number I add the crews of the ships of fifty oars, calculating eighty men for each, whether there were actually more or fewer. Now seeing that, as has already been said, note three thousand of these vessels were assembled, the number of men in them must have been two hundred and forty thousand. 7.184.4 These, then, were the ships' companies from Asia, and the total number of them was five hundred and seventeen thousand, six hundred and ten. There were seven hundred thousand and one hundred footsoldiers and eighty thousand cavalrymen; to these I add the Arabian camel-riders and Libyan charioteers, estimating them to have been twenty thousand in number. 7.184.5 The forces of sea and land added together would consist of two million, three hundred and seventeen thousand, six hundred and ten men. So far I have spoken of the force which came from Asia itself, without the train of servants which followed it and the companies of the grain-bearing craft.

ch. 185 7.185.1 I must, however, also take into account the force brought from Europe, and I will rely on my best judgment in doing so. The Greeks of Thrace and the islands off Thrace furnished one hundred and twenty ships, and the companies of these ships must then have consisted of twenty-four thousand men. 7.185.2 As regards the land army supplied by all the nations—Thracians, Paeonians, Eordi, Bottiaei, Chalcidians, Brygi, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrhaebi, Enienes, Dolopes, Magnesians, Achaeans, dwellers on the coast of Thrace—of all these I suppose the number to have been three hundred thousand. 7.185.3 When these numbers are added to the numbers from Asia, the sum total of fighting men is two million, six hundred and forty-one thousand, six hundred and ten.

ch. 186 7.186.1 This then is the number of soldiers. As for the service-train which followed them and the crews of the light corn-bearing vessels and all the other vessels besides which came by sea with the force, these I believe to have been not fewer but more than the fighting men. 7.186.2 Suppose, however, that they were equal in number, neither more nor fewer. If they were equal to the fighting contingent, they made up as many tens of thousands as the others. The number, then, of those whom Xerxes son of Darius led as far as the Sepiad headland and Thermopylae was five million, two hundred and eighty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty.

ch. 187 7.187.1 That is the number of Xerxes' whole force. No one, however, can say what the exact number of cooking women, and concubines, and eunuchs was, nor can one determine the number of the beasts of draught and burden, and the Indian dogs which accompanied the host; so many of them were there. It is accordingly not surprising to me that some of the streams of water ran dry. I do, however, wonder how there were provisions sufficient for so many tens of thousands,



Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
<<Hdt. 7.181.1 Hdt. 7.184.5 (Greek) >>Hdt. 7.189.1

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