Indeed, it appears that the only way in which we can render the military total, which must at all events have been very great, consistent with the conditions of possible subsistence, is by supposing a comparative absence of attendants, and by adverting to the fact of the small consumption, and habitual patience as to hardship of Orientals in all ages. An Asiatic soldier will at this day make his campaign upon scanty fare, and under privations which would be intolerable to an European.[59] And while we thus diminish the probable consumption, we have to consider that never in any case of ancient history had so much previous pains been taken to accumulate supplies on the line of march: in addition to which the cities in Thrace were required to furnish such an amount of provisions, when the army passed by, as almost brought them to ruin. Herodotus himself expresses his surprise how provisions could have been provided for so vast a multitude; and were we to admit his estimate literally, the difficulty would be magnified into an impossibility. Weighing the circumstances of the case well, and considering that this army was the result of a maximum of effort throughout the vast empire, that a great numerical total was the thing chiefly demanded, and that prayers for exemption were regarded by the Great King as a capital offence, and that provisions had been collected for three years before along the line of march,—we may well believe that the numbers of Xerxes were greater than were ever assembled in ancient times, or perhaps at any known epoch of history. But it would be rash to pretend to guess at any positive number, in the entire absence of ascertained data: and when we learn from Thucydides that he found it impossible to find out the exact numbers of the small armies of Greeks who fought at Mantineia,[60] we shall not be ashamed to avow our inability to count the Asiatic multitudes at Doriskus. We may remark, however, that, in spite of the reinforcements received afterwards in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, it may be doubted whether the aggregate total ever afterwards increased; for Herodotus takes no account of desertions, which yet must have been very numerous, in a host disorderly, heterogeneous, without any interest in the enterprise, and wherein the numbers of each separate contingent were unknown. [57] Even Dahlmann, who has many good remarks in defence of Herodotus, hardly does him justice (Herodot, Aus seinem Buche sein Leben, ch. xxxiv, p. 176).