Bury's book, almost 100 years old, gives no source for its figures whatsoever, nor does it even try to justify them, and I maintain that they're absolutely implausible; modern estimates, such as those by Warren Treadgold, put the size of the entire Byzantine Army in the 770's at 60,000, a figure barely over half the size of what's reported here for a single field force! It is also, it should be noted, the figure used in the main "Byzantine Military" article. Even the paper strength of the Byzantine Army in the early 9th century, as reported by Ibn Khordadbeh (who claims to have gotten his hands on a copy of the military rolls), was only 70,000, 30,000 less than what Bury casually mentions were involved in a single expedition. In any case, the estimate, as shown above, is massively contradicted by more informed examples both ancient and modern, so it really has no place in the article.
Additionally, that all of the Themes and Tagmata, even if they did approach 100,000 combined (very unlikely), would ever be gathered in one place is, quite frankly, a ridiculous idea. Bulgaria and Slavic tribes needed to be constantly guarded against in the north, Lombards and Tunisians needed to be constantly guarded against in the west, and Arab raiders needed to be constantly guarded against at sea. Ripping many or most of the guards from their farms and postings in these regions to go on a raid 1000 miles away would have lead to economic and military disaster, and that's not even considering the logistical impossibility of supplying an army that size.
Jeandukeofalecon (talk) 04:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)JeandukeofaleconReply
- @Jeandukeofalecon: Could you provide a citation for the book/page number of the estimate? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 16:00, 29 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
- @Iazyges: "Byzantium and Its Army, 284-1081", page 67; the number is a bit higher than I remembered, giving an extremely optimistic 80,000 for total soldiers and marines, but it's still far, far too low for anything approaching 100,000 men to have gone on an adventure in Cilicia, even if there were no frontiers to be guarded in the west or south. Jeandukeofalecon (talk) 02:23, 30 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
