Expert: Irulan Serena - 12/21/2004

Question
Hi there,

Not sure if Military History is your specialization, but I hope you can answer these questions(or transfer my question to another expert). It's been bugging me for a while. A friend of mine claims a quote by Sun Tzu in his Art of War is wrong(I believe it's something along the lines of, "When advancing militarily, numbers mean nothing."). While the line is probably exaggerated, I want to prove to my friend that numbers don't count for everything.

To this end, I've done a spot of research and found out about these two battles(Battle of Thermopylae/Sogdian Rock). I am having trouble getting a few crucial details about these battles, however, and I'm hoping you can help me out here:

1) What was the exact length of the Battle of Thermopylae(i.e. from the moment the first Persians engaged the Spartans, till when the last Spartan was killed)? Could you make an educated guess how long the Greeks could've outlasted the Persians, assuming they weren't betrayed?

2) In the battle of Sogdian Rock, how many soldiers did Alexander command, including the ones who did not take part in the rock climbing? Likewise for the opposing side.

3) *Bonus Question* If you're free, could you namedrop a few more battles where a vastly outnumbered side either defeated or caused heavy casualties to the opposing side?

Thank you for your time in reading my questions.  

Answer
Hello Shaun,


Military history is no my field.  Hopefully the following two links will help you:


Alexander the Great: the capture of the Sogdian Rock

http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t54.html


The Battle of Thermopylae

http://www.geocities.com/the_temple_of_ares/300spartans.html



Regards,

Iru