How many days’ forced march would it have been for the Persians from Thermopylae to Athens (ca. 85 miles). One day or less?
Can you ruck 85 miles in a single day even with a light pack? If so, let me know where you got your supersoldier fomula.
A typical ‘forced march’ is between 8 and 15 miles per day depending on terrain and just how motivated your troops are. 20 miles is possible (I’ve hiked it through mountains with a 45 pound pack) but that is pretty exceptional and not something you can do day after day without it breaking you pretty quickly. People do this in Ranger School for several days in a row multiple times over the 60-odd days with a heavy ruck, and it is typically come out the other side having lost 20-30 lbs of body mass. (They’re also running calorie negative for much of their field time so that doesn’t help but that is still a lot of energy.) Be aware that an army isn’t just soldiers; it is also all the provisions, tools, shelter, siege weapons, et cetera that has to be hauled by pack animals or pulled in carts which probably aren’t moving as fast as unloaded soldiers can walk.
Looking at a map the straight-line march from Thermopylae to Athens (103 statute miles) takes a path through Kallidromo Mountain right at the start and then through the Parnitha Range (a heavily forested moderate high range) approaching Athens. Presumably they’d just walk east of Kallidromo but they would have to cross Parnitha, so think more 150 miles, about a quarter of it through mountainous forest. I’d assume something more like two weeks to hoof that distance even without siege gear. Actually, looking at a map it appears that they followed the coast, went south of Parnitha, and then came back north, while much of their naval forces were destroyed in a storm. So, probably more like 3-4 weeks.
Stranger
Thanks Stranger_On_A_Train for the clarification. So the 85 miles (as the crow flies) is really more like 150 miles over physical terrain. Yes I can see now that can take 3-4 weeks at 20 miles a day.
I doubt soldiers with armor and supplies could make 20 miles/day; probably doing really well to average 10 miles a day, more likely 6-8 miles/day.
Stranger
Thank you Stranger_On_A_Train. So marching 8-10 miles a day to cover 150 miles of mountainous terrain could take 3-4 weeks.
It seems that “route marches”, commonplace in WWI, involved covering 25 miles per day while carrying a “kit” averaging anywhere from 55-90 pounds (and these were considerably smaller men on average than serve in modern armed forces). “Forced” marches in an emergency and if you didn’t care too much about the condition of troops arriving at their destination would have covered more ground.
As for ancient times, here’s a source arguing that Spartan soldiers in 490 B.C. marched either 50 or 75 miles in one day. Persians in the OP’s example, depending on conditioning and terrain, might well have been able to cover 85 miles in a couple of days, probably liable to collapse in a heap once they got where they were going.
Well, an average of 8 miles/day over 150 miles would take ~19 days. Figure that if they have animals they’re probably going to have to stop and rest every few days, too, and I’m sure they would do some scouting in unfamiliar territory. So three weeks is probably a credible minimum. Longer if they have to forage/raid for provisions, effect repairs, et cetera.
Stranger
That cite from Herodotus (so not contemporaneous, at least third or fourth hand) talks about “2,000 Spartan hoplites” (foot soldiers) taking a route from Attica to Sparta which would be mostly a coastal trade road only turning mountainous approaching Attica. A 75 mile day march at the standard marching speed of 3 mph would be 15 hours of marching, which…is possible, and the Spartans were raised to be hard men but I suspect some embellishment of the achievement along the way to Herodotus to impress the rubes, especially because you don’t want to be marching after sunset.
WWI “route marches” would be following roads along mostly flat plains, and I think 25 miles would still be the exception rather than the rule if you planned to fight the next day with any effectiveness. As noted, I’ve done 20 miles in mountain terrain with a moderately heavy pack, and over 30 with an overloaded exframe in a single day but even the hardest dogface needs recovery after 2-3 days of that kind of work.
Stranger
Though how much faster could he have got there by cavalry alone? Purely hypothetically I don’t think the Persians of that era (unlike later Sassanid Persians) were heavily reliant on cavalry, and it would not have made any strategic sense to do so.
But what was the maximum speed of a cavalry army?
Anything from ancient sources involving large numbers, be it sizes of armies or long distances should be taken with a huge grain of salt. I’m generally a Herodotus fan, but mathematical statements like that do not hold water
Cavalry isn’t really any faster than infantry over long distances and depending on availability of water and forage may actually be slower. Often cavalry covering long distances does a lot of movement dismounted so avoid overworking the horses, and mounted horses require regular care to avoid developing saddle sores and foot problems that would make them ineffectual in battle. The same is true for other mounted animals, which is why Hannibal crossing the Alps with ~40 elephants was so remarkable. The reason to have mounted forces is because of how much they can dominate a battlefield with speed, reach, and (in the case of elephants particularly) their destructive capability, not because they move faster than unmounted forces.
Stranger
Using Stanford University’s Orbis, I see that “rapid military march” is defined as “60 km/day”.
I can see that for heavy cavalry, but isnt the point of light cavalry to be able to move fast, so you can recognoiture and raid (and not get caught by numerically superior, but slower opposing troops)
Sure, light cavalry moves fast in attack, and are good for raiding as evidenced by the horse raiding cultures of the Central Asian steppes and later the Mongols, but you can’t just ride a horse at a trot much less a gallop for a dozens of miles straight without killing the animal. Horses need a lot of water, good forage, and time to recover. The stock quarter horses used for cattle drives in the 1800s American West were bred for stamina and ability to survive on the open range, not size, speed, or aggressiveness of a war horse, and even then drives usually made only about 15 miles a day because of the effects on the cattle losing salable muscle mass without sufficient rest.
Stranger
I’ve walked 50 miles in a day without a backpack. I wasn’t much in the mood to walk further, but even if I had been, I was out of day in which to do it. Younger people in quite good shape could, but once you got them there, don’t expect them to be in the best shape to do any fighting. I was young once and did close to 50 back then, and I could scarcely limp across the room, or even rise from my chair, after a couple hours of rest. Which I incontrovertibly needed.