Primary source:>Yeah I was there, we had 100K men and they had 150KModern estimate:>10K vs 12K
>>18430217If you just accept every "yeah I was there" statement as fact then you also believe in werewolves and that dozens of medieval churches contained Jesus's miraculous foreskin. You should examine multiple sources and consider the context of each one when coming to a conclusion about the historicity of accounts. Some first hand historical accounts are likely quite accurate, many are likely not. The kadesh inscriptions are almost certainly not accurate, they are political propaganda. Of course, you should also keep in mind that judgements about the accuracy of accounts are based in the specific time and place of the interpreter. Plutarch's description of the battle of Otryae was assumed to be bullshit for like 1500 years because it was assumed to be impossible, but was later accepted as possibly being accurate once science had sufficiently advanced to accept it. Which is to say it is entirely possible that contemporary interpretations of archaeological evidence are also influenced by assumptions in the field, too. You just gotta do your best with the data that exists.
Welcome to history as a serious subject! The first thing you have to learn is not to accept at face value every claim made by historical sources. Anybody can claim anything in writing. Until it's substantiated somehow, it's not proof of anything.
>>18430217>reading about the punic wars>rome loses a huge battle with hundreds of thousands of soldiers lost>we'll just raise a new one its fine>carthage annihilates Rome's navy or hundreds of fully loaded transport ships are lost in a storm>don't worry about that, happens all the time, we'll just build 100 more triremes next month to make up for itHow am I supposed to take this stuff seriously?
>>18430217>>18430301>Jewish primary sources>And then Rabbi Mishka said "the LORD rebuke you, filthy goy!" and the gentile's head turned into that of a donkey, and I witnessed it! And that is why this mountain is called donkey head mountainLol.
>>18430301>t. professor ching chong bing bong Hannibal existed and he was one of the greatest generals of all time.
>>18430363That happened because I believe it did, and because it's written in the old testament. Faith does not require the support of proof.
>>18430363kek
>>18430292>Welcome to history as a serious subject! It's not a serious subject because historians lie and make shit up too.
>>18430217Then you realise it is more likely something is true based on how much push back and dirt is heaped upon it.>Herodotus and the Scythians....
>>18430217Just because he was there doesn't mean he counted every single man on the field.
>>18430217>primary source>author wasn't there>actually written 300 years later
>>18430301people were built different back then.
OP cannot name one example of this happening. If anything, historians are sometimes too trusting of ancient sources, as with the very high casualty figures at Cannae. No, I'm all for uplifting ancient historians and tearing modern ones down, but no one ever fielded half a million men in one location in the bleeding bronze age.
MOST CONTEMPORARY HISTORIANS ARE BUGPEOPLE; BUGPEOPLE WITH PRESENTISTIC PREJUDICES; THEY CANNOT CONCEIVE OF PEOPLE IN ANTIQUITY BEING STRONGER, TALLER, FASTER, WISER THAN «PEOPLE» TODAY; THEY CANNOT CONCEIVE OF ARMIES OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, BECAUSE «THEY WERE ON FOOT», «WHAT WOULD THEY EAT?», ET CETERA.
>>18430363>And that is why this mountain is called donkey head mountainGreeks loved this stuff too, every 3 pages in the Argonautica the Argonauts stop on an island and build a shrine or dig a well so the author can say "and that's how [insert temple/settlement] was started"
>>18430972was surprised to learn there are no surviving contemporary accounts of Cannae, and the oldest surviving source was written 50 years later
You really think people knew how to count that high back then?
>>18430982Silence, elotero, the topic of discussion is not corn snacks - you will be summoned if we need your sagacious wisdom on that topic.
>>18430217It's actually remarkably difficult to estimate crowd size just by looking at a group of people. Modern estimates are based on other calculations like land food production and probabilistic estimates regarding how many men a country could raise and how many men could actually be deployed to a given location.
