<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Shade of Carn Dûm
Posts: 442</TD><TD></TD></TR></TABLE>
Re: Whoa!
During its zenith, Khazad-dûm was also trading heavily to the West. When Sauron conquered Eregion, the doors of Moria were shut and its people began to "dwindle", presumably due in large part to starvation. <blockquote>
Quote:<hr> The power of Moria endured throughout the Dark Years and the dominion of Sauron, for though Eregion was destroyed and the gates of Moria were shut, the halls of Khazad-dûm were too deep and strong and filled with a people too numerous and valiant for Sauron to conquer from without. Thus its wealth remained long unravished, though its people began to dwindle.<hr></blockquote>You may be right, Gil, but somehow I've always pictured ME as being fairly sparsely populated. In most battles where figures are given, the combatants seem to number in the thousands. For instance, Théoden says that he could have mustered ten thousand if he had decided to leave his strongholds all unguarded; as it was, he only brought six thousand. When Turgon brings his host from Gondolin to the Nirnaeth, they number only ten thousand. Dain apparently only brings about five hundred dwarves to the Battle of Five Armies.
We've either grossly underestimated dwarvish storage capacity and/or their ability to produce their own food, or overestimated their food requirements and/or their population if the constant flow of trade you theorize could be cut off for years and still leave ANY dwarves alive inside the mines by the time they woke up the cranky Balrog. The Hobbit mentions that the Dwarves of Dain's Iron Hills army could have withstood a siege for weeks with only the food that they had packed with them on their backs.
One has to question Azog's tactics. Why not hole up inside the mountain and wait for the Dwarvish host to get tired and go away? Perhaps because the Orcs, unlike the pragmatic and industrious Dwarves, hadn't stockpiled food and cultivated some sources of their own.
</p>
Edited by: <A HREF=http://www.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile&u=00000005>Mister Underhill</A> at: 2/15/01 11:08:21 am