Logistics

In the intervals between nodding off in front of the television yesterday evening - we had had a rather substantial lunch - I was turning the pages of Renault on Alexander, of references 1 and 2.

I read of the Battle of Chaeronea, fought between the Macedonians and the Greeks in 338BC, some fifty miles northwest of Athens and about the same distance north of Corinth. According to Wikipedia around 30,000 men on each side. The actual battleground was reasonably flat, but there was plenty of rough, difficult and dangerous country around.

Thinking of the Macedonians, further from home than the Greeks, I got to thinking about feeding all these people. Suppose we allow a pound of grain per man per day, a pound from which you might get a bit more than a pound of bread, a bit more than one of today's small loaves. A good deal less, I might say, than I eat as a senior, let along a junior marching 20 or 30 miles a day, with a bit of fighting thrown in for luck. Horses have to look after themselves. We pick up firewood along the way. We suppose water not to be a problem. So, 30,000lbs of grain a day, say thirty cartloads at 1,000lbs to the ancient cart.

Thirty carts a day, perhaps having to move over difficult roads, perhaps through mountain passes. It all sounds like a major feat of logistics. And what about the bandits in the mountains?

Maybe the Egyptians were feeding a lot more people a thousand years before this battle. But this was mostly on building sites for things like temples and pyramids, generally either on the Nile Delta or somewhere handy to the Nile proper. Home territory. Fertile territory. River transport. So not such a big deal.

I remain impressed. As I was a few years back when I read of the Romans marching a couple of legions up the eastern side of what was then wild and woolly Britain, getting about level with Perth.

PS: the snap above taken from one of the computer games which have been made about this battle. More impressive when it is moving rather than paused.

Reference 1: The nature of Alexander - Mary Renault - 1975.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-work-for-sundays.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaeronea_(338_BC).