Timeline for Where did this claim about the Egpytian Theban army come from?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 11, 2022 at 18:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackHistory/status/1557788964127399937 | ||
| Jun 13, 2022 at 10:46 | history | edited | CGCampbell | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 11, 2022 at 0:03 | vote | accept | Master | ||
| Jun 10, 2022 at 21:42 | answer | added | kimchi lover | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 10, 2022 at 19:43 | history | edited | Master | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 10, 2022 at 18:23 | comment | added | Master | I am just looking for the source of the claim, which you have found. If you could post our discussion as an answer, I will accept it. | |
| Jun 10, 2022 at 18:20 | comment | added | kimchi lover | What does "come from" mean, in the context of this particular question? | |
| Jun 10, 2022 at 5:33 | comment | added | Master | This is also a theoretical total for mass mobilization, not all maintained simultaneously and not all mobilized at once. If Egypt had population of say, five or 10 million people, a total hypothetical manpower of 1,000,000 soldiers is not that unreasonable. Polybius records a similar total for Italy, and many historians today support him. | |
| Jun 10, 2022 at 5:32 | comment | added | Master | I was not questioning the veracity of this figure, though I do not think it as implausible as you do. Ancient population figures are very variable, estimates for Persia rang from 17 to 100 million for instance. Wikipedia takes the average, which gives an illusion of certainty, but the numbers are much more flexible. Pomp. Mela only claims there were 100 chieftains in Thebes, each of which had 10,000 soldiers they could, hypothetically, mobilize. It is not necessary to assume these soldiers all lived in Thebes, only they were under the command of lords in Thebes. | |
| Jun 10, 2022 at 2:58 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | It looks like the population of Thebes couldn't have been more than 100k, and that's later in the Ancient era. All of Egypt itself bumped around between 3.5 and 5 million throughout all of recorded history up until the modern era. Having half the entire male population of Egypt hanging out with weapons inside of Thebes ready to go seems ... quite unlikely. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 21:27 | comment | added | Master | The pattern with all these claims is that the number of soldiers is either the total military manpower, not the standing army, or the entire army throughout. 1,000,000 or (700,000) military eligible men, or 1,000,000 soldiers in the entire empire, is very different from a single army of 1,000,000 men. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 21:24 | comment | added | kimchi lover | Pomponius Mela, De Chorographia, book I, chap ix (babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/…) has this calculation: 100 gates, times tens of thousands. See jstor.org/stable/pdf/300201.pdf for a discussion. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 21:22 | comment | added | Master | Pomponius Mela, 1.60 records there were 100 gates in the city, or alternatively 100 palaces of great chiefs, and the each chief led 10,000 armed men. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 21:19 | comment | added | Master | Tacitus, 2. 60 claims Thebes of old had 700,000 men of military age, which is an altogether different claim than the record of 700,000 soldiers. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 21:15 | comment | added | Master | I have found the source. Strabo, Book XVII, Chapter 46. It repeats Homer's words, then claims that certain Egyptian Kings maintained an army of 1,000,000 soldiers. However the army of 1,000,000 is in the context of the entire Egyptian state, not the single city of Thebes. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 20:48 | comment | added | kimchi lover | and the discussion at google.com/books/edition/The_Origin_of_Laws_Arts_and_Sciences/… has more precise references, which I have not verified. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 20:31 | comment | added | kimchi lover | google.com/books/edition/History_of_Civilisation/… talks about 1,000,000 as an exaggeration by Strabo and/or Pomponius Mela, but I have not verified his sources. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 19:29 | comment | added | Master | @T.E.D. That is a common modern impression, but I am not sure I agree with it. Either way, the question was not whether the number was accurate, but where it came from. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 19:28 | comment | added | Master | @kimchi lover Does it future 1,000,000 soldiers as well? | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 19:12 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | Ancient sources seem to typically be much more into trying to impress the listener/reader than into preserving a precise census of forces. The first city in the world to reach 1 million residents probably didn't happen until the 2nd century BC, and it wasn't Thebes. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 18:42 | comment | added | kimchi lover | Book 9 of the Iliad has 100 gates with 200 chariots per gate, at Egyptian Thebes. | |
| Jun 9, 2022 at 17:50 | history | edited | MCW♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 9, 2022 at 17:34 | history | asked | Master | CC BY-SA 4.0 |