At the Second battle of Chaeronea Was it True That Sulla only lost 12 men?

Question

If it is true how was it possible, other than the trenchs he empoyed in the battle

Answer 1

There are only two accounts of the battle and both are rather unbelievable. A force of over 100,000 facing off with Sulla's force of 40,000 or so. To believe that only 12 were killed on the Roman side does not make common sense that a force that was 4 times the size of the Romans could only kill 12 soldiers. I realize history is written by the victors, but common sense tells me that there were more deaths.

Sulla had only 15,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, thus he was badly outnumbered. Altho he divised a combination of both an ambush and a full frontal attack which created chaos for the Mithridatic army. But this was only a minor advantage as the enemies shear weight of numbers looked to topple the Romans.

It was here that Sulla showed why he is among one of the top Roman generals as he went up and down the lines, diverting cohorts and commands to all areas of the action to constantly hold the line. Eventually he personally took control of the right wing and routed his adversaries while the left wing followed suit under Murena and Hortensius.

What followed was a slaughter, only 10,000 of Archalus' men escaped alive. The Roman losses by comparison were light, supposedly only 12 deaths....but this is hardly believable given the scope of the action.

Answer 2

14 at first, the 2 returned at nightfall...hard to believe only 12 lost to 10,000 lost what an *** whooping

Answer 3

true