Ancient Warfare Answers (237): Why was the Macedonian casualty rate so low?

Brendon asks why the Macedonian phalanx at the Battles of Issues and Gaugamela suffered such a low casualty rate from arrows fired by archers?
Murray gives us his opinion.

1 comment

Something you said raised a question with me. I’m prepared to accept relatively low figures for Macedonian casualties (killed, maimed and seriously wounded), but how were enemy casualty figures calculated? Did someone go around counting all the dead Persian bodies (and making sure they weren’t double-counted), or did Macedonian soldiers get to estimate how many Persians they had killed? If the latter, vastly inflated numbers might well be the norm.

Duncan Whinton-Brown

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