sunstoned wrote:The Book of Mormon describes the Nephite Army as numbering close to a million men. To field, fully equip and support a million men iron age army a civilization would have to be very large and very complex. It would need to produce huge amounts of food, cloths, and weapons, and it would need a reliable communication and transportation system. These types of numbers would indicate a civilization the size of the Roman empire. This was no minor tribe huddled in a corner of the Yucatan Peninsula. A civilization of this size and complexity would leave evidences of its existence.
Totally. The military issue and the amount of infrastructure to support such an endeavor [a million men would be at least twice what the Romans mobilized in their mobilization heyday] not to mention the millions of more farmers to feed them is mind boggling. It really irritates me that a historian such as Hamblin [who wrote a book on ancient military right?] doesn't follow this line of thinking more logically.