10 August, 2007

Tens of thousands

Question by Amit Varma

Herodotus once wrote:

“The counting was done by first packing ten thousand men as close together as they could stand and drawing a circle round them on the ground; they were then dismissed, and a fence, about navel high, was constructed around the circle; finally, other troops were marched into the area thus enclosed and dismissed in their turn, until the whole army had been counted.”

Whose army?