How many Persians were at the Battle of Thermopylae?

Question

I saw the film 300, and it was mentioned that the Persian army was around the 1 million mark in numbers. Is this accurate?

Answer 1

Im thinking the claim was around 250,000, I hear that number a lot when reading of that particular invasion. I even think that some of the more imaginative Greek Historians claimed a million. 250,000 is probably more accurate, if the number was not much less than that. You have to remember most of the histories we have of this war are from Greek Historians. Either way though the Greeks were heavily outnumbered.

Answer 2

Herodotos, the historian who covered the persian wars, mentions something like 5 million. But this is considered to be an exaggeration, so we don't know exactly how many were the Persians, but any number between 200.000 and 1.500.000 has been supported as accurate (according to wikipedia). It still sounds like a lot. What you should know, is that apart from the 300 Spartans, there were also 800 Thebans I think and 700 Thespians who also stayed there to die voluntarily.

Answer 3

Those were the claims but it is impossible to accurately number the Persians. It was almost certainly not one million, that figure is much too high for the population at that time to sustain. But the more Persians there were, the more heroic the Greeks and the Greeks wrote the history.

Answer 4

Modern estimates suggest a more realistic number between 50,000 to 70,000 Persians. And about 7,000 to 10,000 Spartans. Nowhere near the exaggerated number that history has long provided us.

Answer 5

Xerxes' royal guard was 10,000 strong. He had several other units in his army, but it's unlikely there were a million. His guard wouldn't have been able to protect him, and he was not very well-liked. Many of his forces were pressed into service from the local population if they could be found. He may have had a main army of 50,000, but it wasn't all gathered there.

Answer 6

extremely undemanding. in the starting up, they summoned the Spartans to provide up. at the same time as the availability replaced into rejected, they attacked head-on with archers and infantry. They took the bull by ability of the horns and made a frontal attack in stress on a prepared (a breast-severe stone and earth barricade) and defended position. They took heavy casualties, yet stuck to it. ultimately a Greek collaborator led some instruments of their military by ability of mountain paths to take the Spartans in flank and in rear. They weren't in any respect going to lose, inspite of the inept strategies; they were there in overwhelming stress, and in the accurate may have exhausted the Spartan resistance, prevailing by ability of sheer attrition.

Answer 7

about 20,000 the Greeks were about 7,000 a bit less.

Answer 8

Not enough, obviously