"Exaggerating Romans?" Topic

I was reading Barkers Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome the other day and I was struck (not for the first time) by the numbers given for the various battles listed- I don't have the book in front of me to pick out specific examples- but the numbers given for the enemies in battle after battle seemed a bit on the big side.

Where the Romans claim they annhialated an enemy army of 50-60,000 or more, leaving no survivors, and their only loss in return was that Maximus stubbed his big toe…are these numbers believable?

I don't know a huge amount about all the individual societies the Romans fought across Europe but it strikes me that these armies were a lot bigger than those that could be raised from societies no less advanced a few centuries later- how were they able to organise and maintain in the field such huge forces for any length of time? Why were they not simply decimated by plague and illness like even moderatly sized medieval forces? And surely such losses would put a heck of a dent in the population level of the period but for all the tens of thousands put to the Roman Sword the hordes keep on coming. Was the population even large enough to support such forces?
And where is all the physical evidence? I tried to look up mass graves – If the Romans were regularly slaughtering folk by the thousands surely this should show up in the arcaeological record at least a bit, but most mass graves only seem to contain a few dozen individuals…

So is my hunch right? That the Romans were bigging up their victories, claiming a couple of legions had been victorious over huge armies when in fact they'd only beaten up 30 drunken youths and a few little old ladies? Or were they just not able to count (having to add up all those C's and X's probably isnt as easy as proper numbers…)? Or did such armies actually exist, and the Romans just weren't able to tell how many casualties had actually had been inflicted and bragged they'd killed the lot, when in fact they'd simply run away to get their mates and come back for another go next week…

I'm sure someone here will know…or, possibly, was actually there.

thanks!

It's one of the big questions, isn't it? If you were able to find the answers and get others to accept them, you could make a bit of a name for yourself!

Cheers,
Aaron

Take all the numbers with a pinch of salt.

But also bear in mind that, as has been obvious to some of us broad minded people, the population estimates for the ancient world are stupidly small. Thankfully the new satellite archaeology is now revealing that this planet has always had more people on it than we thought!

Typically, if you divided the enemy numbers by 10 you got the proper amount. This was a known convention by Roman society.
I believe this was 'fact' was in one of Grants' books but I loaned the book and it was not returned so I cannot give the actual source.

Thanks, can anyone link me to population estimates for the ancient world? Didnt get much with google…

"Typically, if you divided the enemy numbers by 10 you got the proper amount" Thats exactly the convention I adopted when discussing such things with my gaming group!

Divide by 10 is a pretty good convention throughout all time.

I know he goes in and out of fashion, but I've always found Hans Delbruck's analysis of battle sizes (not sure if he gets into population levels for ancients/classics) interesting and seemingly sound.

Rome is spinning the body count. My take on the whole thing….

There are relatively few casualties while both armies are fighting and in relatively good order.

When one side breaks, that is when all the casualties REALLY occur.

Rome reports only the deaths on their side. They report all manner of casualties on the other side (Killed/Wounded/captured).

At Zama for instance, Hannibal's army was destroyed with just a handful of cavalry and the great general making an escape. So about 40,000 casualties. Rome claimed 1500 casualties. That was only deaths. In reality, they probably lost twice that in wounded so Rome probably totaled 4500 casualties by the end of the battle. Hannibal probably lost 3/4 of his casualties after the army finally broke.

Whenever the Romans fought the "barbarians" they typically report the tribal strength and not the strength of actual fighting men. Watling Street has Boudicca's strength at 230,000. That is probably ALL of her followers. Phil Sabin says that most armies could only hope to withstand up to 4:1 odds against them. So, with that in mind, if the Roman army totaled 10,000 warriors, it is unlikely that they faced a force bigger than about 40,000 warriors.

Even Julius Caesar admits that only a portion of the numbers he reported actually fought. He claims that the Helvitii were 230,000 strong but he admits to fighting 90,000 warriors. I suspect the number to be even less than that. 20% of the population is the very most you can expect to muster for able bodied fighting men.

That is my 2 cents.

Firstly, if your enemy fought in a looser formation than you you would probably overestimate their numbers both as regards number per rank on frontage as well as depth. Secondly, many of the battles against barbarians are liable to have a large number of camp followers who would also be included in the final count. Then add the 'normal' exaggeration to that figure…

Mary Beard notes that the number 40,000 should always make you pause when you see it in ancient sources. Apparently it's like our "millions" -- a convention for "a very large number."

I feel certain no Roman general wanted to go home and boast, 'hay honey me and my umpteen thousand mates kicked the snot out of a couple of dozen citizen types armed with a mixture of bad smells, uncut toenails, and a blunt toasting fork'…yeah that'll impress them back home won't it!

Roman sources also have a habit of ignoring the Auxilia and Allies.

Claiming victory for stalemate is another thing they were good at.

To be fair,Phil does use the qualifier "allegedly" several times,IIRC.

And to be fair to the Romans,they inherited the tradition. The huge numbers of Persians reported by Herodotus predate any Roman battle accounts. We don't know what ideas the Greeks had on "barbarian" armies before that,but I doubt Herodotus would have promulgated million-man armies, if it was wildly out of sync with popular Greek belief.

If a coalition of small Greek cities could defeat such a mighty army, the Great Macedonian could do no less.

If Sulla could defeat 85,000 with 15,000, Julius could do no less.

+1 boy wudyr x. Delbruck did talk about population estimates,based on then-new demographic methodology. It may have been modified,but I recommend reading Delbruck on army strengths. He demonstrates how the exaggerations carry on into the Medieval era: one chronicle cited claims four and a half million Poles and Lithuanians at Tannenberg.

And it continued in the modern era.

Come on, guys, you all know veterans don't exaggerate. Much.

The Victors write the books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mike Adams

So we going the other way then too? When Hannibal won at Cannae, were the Roman losses really that huge?

I do think all ancients probably had their numbers off, exaggerating their foe's losses.

Look at WW2 pilot after action claims….they usually claimed far more kills than actually went down.

I doubt it is just a Roman thing.

When Hannibal won at Cannae, were the Roman losses really that huge?

Yes. Pretty much every source agrees that the Romans had a total party wipeout. (TPW)

I personally think ancient casualties were probably similar to medieval and renaissance battle ones. Not a great number in the battle itself, but rather a lot during the pursuit.
I agree the enemy armies numbers were inflated, based on other periods militaries tendency to do so.
I doubt the truth will ever be clear on battle numbers.

MGH Ford-- Interesting that you mention Cannae,as Delbruck uses it as a sort of case study on the reliability of ancient sources,since we posess more than one account,a rarity in ancient history. He follows Polybius fairly closely,pointing out where errors and gaps may be evident. He follows this by printing the full account of Appian,"who repeats some Roman account or other". Makes for hilarious reading,and not often cited in discussions of Cannae,AFAIK.

He uses this to question the reliance on bad sources,when we lack good ones,by the historians of his day,rather than trying to reconstruct what was actually possible. He calls them "philologists",which threw me for a while,until I realized he means it in the narrower (or is it "broader"?) sense of "lovers of the word",i.e. those who hold the written word sacrosanct, to the exclusion of practical considerations,or archeological evidence,which was still in its youth. Although Napoleon III had uncovered a number of Roman works in the 19th century.

I recall having had some "total party wipeouts" myself, back in the day : )

There's an important technical detail too: both public ceremonies honoring Roman generals – ovation and triumph – required a conventional number of slain enemies.
Of course, this was since the beginning a political matter, since there was never a Permanent Commision for Triumphs travelling from one battlefield to another to check the number of casulties.
So how was it exactly decided how many enemies had died in a battle? Here is a very interesting and extremely difficult historical question.
Probably it had to do with booty collected, personal prestige and gifts to senators and bribes as well as with the numbers actually involved.

Maybe a genetic thing, seems Romans could not count bodies and modern Italian famers can not count Olive trees

I'm always sceptical about numbers. Ever tried organising food for 230,000 men?

Ever tried moving the same 230,000 men and still feeding them?

Any ideas on the amount of land it takes to feed 230,000 men prior to the Argricultural Revolution?

Divide by ten sounds right to me.

And not only men. Creasy saw "no reason to doubt" the traditional figures of 400,000-500,000 Hunt at Chalons. Each rider would have a string of 4-7 horses. That's a lot of fodder.

That d×*/!¿ Autocorrect! I know I changed it to "Huns"!

Creasy was smoking something!

Fodder?

Maybe Loco Weed. . .

ALL of the above. Numbers of dead very increased over reality. General often increase the numbers to make them self's look good. at the battle of Mill Springs in 1862 Rebel regiments said they fought off 36,00o union troops more than in the entire Union Army about 5,000 men.

Re size of hordes: Herodotus (7.60) tells of Xerxes having an enclosure built around a unit of 10,000 men, and then having the rest of the host fill the space in turn. Theoretically, this could produce a fairly accurate total for the army. THEN you add a couple more zeroes, so to speak…