Final response:
One of history’s most controversial discussions is based on the Battle of Thermopylae, and how
many Persian soldiers were actually fighting in it. After reading and analyzing documents A,B,C, and D, I
determined which document would be the most reliable source to finally figure out how many Persians
were at the infamous Battle. I believe document B which states that there were 810,000 Persian soldiers
at the Battle of Thermopylae is the most reliable source, because the author of this document (Ctesias)
wrote it based on information located in the official Persian archives. Ctesias was said to have had
access to official Persian archives and because he worked for the Persian king, it seems very likely.
Another thing document B consists of is a strong secondary source, which all the other documents lack.
Due to all the evidence that supports the claim that there were 810,000 Persian soldiers at the Battle of
Thermopylae, I conclude that Document B is the strongest and most reliable. Document A was written
by an ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who was alive during the battle but never witnessed it nor
heard about it because he was too young. My issue with this document is that his only piece of evidence
to back up his claim that there were 2,317,610 Persian soldiers, are the accounts of the Greek veterans
who fought in the war. Because this is his only form of evidence, and there is a possibility the
information he received could have been biased, it makes this document very unreliable. The final two
documents were written centuries later and based on the same source of information with a very similar
claim. Document C states that there was no way an army of the size that Herodotus claimed could have
been geographically possible. He claims that due to the water supplies available, the Persian army had
anywhere from 210,000 – 250,000 soldiers maximum. Document D uses the same claim which is that
Herodotus’s number is unrealistic and also geographically impossible, he concludes that there were
anywhere between 300,000- 350,000 maximum. In addition to a substantially different number, the
author of this document also makes you question the reliability of the previous documents. Based on all
four documents and their different supporting evidence, I firmly believe Document B which states that
there were 810,000 Persians, is the most reliable and helpful for finally finding out the number of
Persian soldiers at the Battle of Thermopylae.