Bryguy3k on January 7, 2026 1:04 pm Ah back when battles involved 1/10 of all people in the world. Ancient historians sure liked to add some zeros to army sizes. (Yes I exaggerate – ancient sources puts Darius III’s army at 1M and at the time the total population of humans was around 100M).
morbihann on January 7, 2026 1:14 pm Except they were likely fairly similar matched in terms of numbers. AND the macedonians were much more heavily armed.
Moidada77 on January 7, 2026 1:20 pm Darius had no war elephants He had a few animals but they were just caravan animals or just for show, there’s zero records of Alexanders troops fighting elephants before hydaspis
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Ah back when battles involved 1/10 of all people in the world.
Ancient historians sure liked to add some zeros to army sizes.
(Yes I exaggerate – ancient sources puts Darius III’s army at 1M and at the time the total population of humans was around 100M).
Except they were likely fairly similar matched in terms of numbers.
AND the macedonians were much more heavily armed.
War elephants are a net loss
Darius had no war elephants
He had a few animals but they were just caravan animals or just for show, there’s zero records of Alexanders troops fighting elephants before hydaspis