Battles of Pteria/Thymbra, 547/6BC. Croesus of Lydia v Cyrus the Great of Persia

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12 years 2 months ago - 12 years 2 months ago #1284 by The-Admiral
I have designed a scenario on the battle of Pasargadae in 550BC which pre-ceded the above battles. I then did a little reading on these two battles and came away very puzzled...

There isn't much information on Pteria which was in effect a tactical draw, but a strategic defeat for King Croesus of Lydia as it ended his invasion of Cappadocia. The reason given for his defeat is that he was outnumbered by the Persians and therefore pulled back to his own Kingdom and called up his allies (Egyptians, Babylonians and Spartans) for a renewed spring offensive. In the meantime he released many troops from his army as he wouldn't be requiring them over the winter. All sounds very reasonable to this point.

The wily Cyrus doesn't disband his army for winter, but follows Croesus to his capital at Sardis where he fights the surprised Lydians, defeats them and takes their city and their Kingdom 14 days later. Again this all sounds very plausible.

Where thing go awry is that in the second battle (Thymbra) the Lydians with a depleted army, and with their allies not arriving until the Spring, now have an approx 3:1 numerical advantage. What!

This is so often a problem with ancient sources. You have to literally read between the lines, and I would make the following points as to my own interpretations:
1) The histories that we have (Xenophon and Herodotus)are fairly favorable to Cyrus (especially Xenophon), and they could therefore be talking up Lydian numbers to make the victory all the more impressive.
2) The course of the battle has the Lydians attempting to envelop the Persians with their elite cavalry. Cyrus counters this by putting camels on his wings and putting his infantry into a square. Horses hate camels and the Lydian cavalry attack is blunted. In the meantime a gap has developed between the Lydian infantry in the centre and their cavalry wings. Cyrus flings troops into the gaps thus outflanking the Lydian infantry and attacks their centre. The whole move routs the Lydians who flee to their city. My problem with this is that if the Persians were outnumbered 3:1 and their men were in a square then the Lydian line would have been muuuuuch longer and would have extended well beyond the flanks of the Persians. Envelopment would have been easy even without the cavalry. Gaps between the Lydian infantry and cavalry could only have reasonably occurred when the cavalry attempted its outflanking move if the Lydian infantry line was much shorter. Which all suggests that the Lydians did not have a big numerical advantage.
3) But, we do read that the Lydian centre consisted of heavy Egyptian troops. So these allies must have arrived early to offset some of the previous departures.

Overall I think that the Persians at Thymbra probably had a numerical advantage which was probably greater than at Pteria which is why this time the Persians won. If the Lydians knew that they were even more outnumbered than before they probably thought that their only realistic chance of victory lay in a flanking attack by there superior and feared cavalry that could possibly upset the Persian army. The clever Cyrus had probably realised this too, and he therefore knew that if he prevented this i.e with camels and square, the victory would be a banker.

I just thought I would share these musings.

Travis Taliaferro has done these two battles if you wish to fight them out.
Last edit: 12 years 2 months ago by The-Admiral.
The following user(s) said Thank You: taliapharaoh

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