World Affairs Board - View Single Post - How big were ancient and medieval armies?

gunnut · 04-23-2008, 13:19 PM

You have to look at the overall population and the number of soldiers to truly compare how large an army was.

The world wasn't populated 2000 years ago like it is today. Rome was the largest city on earth with more than 1 million inhabitants which wasn't eclipsed until 18th or 19th century London. Now we have Shanhai with 17+ million or something like that.

You could say 10,000 men is a lot if you only have 100,000 inhabitants to draw from. But it's not many if you have a nation of 50 million.

Of course now we augment our forces with technology so we can do more with fewer soldiers.

04-23-2008, 13:19 PM	#6 (permalink)
gunnut *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 01-27-06 Location: DPRK, Democratik People's Republik of Kalifornia Posts: 9,369 Country:	You have to look at the overall population and the number of soldiers to truly compare how large an army was. The world wasn't populated 2000 years ago like it is today. Rome was the largest city on earth with more than 1 million inhabitants which wasn't eclipsed until 18th or 19th century London. Now we have Shanhai with 17+ million or something like that. You could say 10,000 men is a lot if you only have 100,000 inhabitants to draw from. But it's not many if you have a nation of 50 million. Of course now we augment our forces with technology so we can do more with fewer soldiers. __________________ "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.