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Lothronion t1_ix67bnv wrote

Reply to comment by Vulture12 in what was the population of ancient Mesopotamia? by Omastnar

These seem like a good indicator. In 19th century Western Europe the population percentage that would be engaged in the military was about 2%, with the exception being the militarized Kingdom of Prussia with a percentage of 3,5% (if I remember correctly).

Given how these societies are far older, so less manpower would be needed elsewhere, a reasonable percentage could be 5%. Therefore, Rameses II's 100 thousand could easily translate into 2 million people, which seems a reasonable figure for the time (since the population fell in the Bronze Age Collapse, and how in Ptolemaic Egypt the figure was 3 million people).

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ThoDanII t1_ix6evs3 wrote

>Given how these societies are far older, so less manpower would be needed elsewhere, a reasonable percentage could be 5%.

quite contrary, more manpower would be needed for less efficient methods

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the_skine t1_ix6geix wrote

Also, they didn't have large professional armies.

Up until the early 1900s, over 95% of all people worked in agriculture. Many of those men would help plant in the spring, go to war in the summer, harvest in the fall, and tend to their homes and farms in the winter.

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