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Animated Skeleton
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Re: canon and questions
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Quote:<hr> Just finished the Suite101 essay Elves by the numbers.
I suppose one could quibble over the assumptions made for generational staggering, but the methodology is sound. Over the years, the populations would be quite large since attrition was only due to "unnatural" causes.
Coming at the problem from another angle leads one to believe that MM's generational assumptions are fairly close to what was necessary to generate populations able to support the armies the Noldor fielded.
An army of 10,000 requires a tremendous amount of logistical support. For every elf on the field, there were many more engaged in the tasks of food production, husbandry, weapons manufacture, clothing, transportation, engineering, etc. I don't think we should assume the Spartan efficiencies of a military civilization.
In other words, it really takes quite a large population to support armies even of this size. I forget what the ratio of field to support is in a modern army, but it is quite high for any army. Beyond pure military support, as indicated in the previous paragraph, is the support of the entire population behind it.
In other words, we are talking about large populations indeed.<hr></blockquote>
The ratios of populations to army sizes change depending on cultural sophistication and technology. Our highly technological civilization in the United States has about 9 support troops for every front-line soldier. This is extreme compared to ancient armies. The typical Roman legion of the period circa 100 BCE - 300 CE was expected to perform most of its own engineering tasks while also doing the bulk of the fighting. The soldiers were in fact put to use between battles and marches to keep them busy and out of trouble.
On the other hand, the Vikings often sowed their crops, went to sea for a few months, and then returned home to harvest the crops. The wealthier families had slaves to take care of things, but the general population didn't.
Many Germanic tribes also had a period of campaigning in the summer when the men weren't needed for the farms.
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Quote:<hr> That settled, if we aren't speaking of a Spartan civilization, to what can we compare it? Or can we at all?
Much of the population was hundreds to thousands of years old. Elvish children were evidently raised to their particular station in life. I'm thinking something almost Asian... <hr></blockquote>
One must arbitrarily pick a model and see if it works. Of course, people will do what they can to shoot holes in anyone else's model. <img src=smile.gif ALT="
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