Vast Armies and Their Movements.
THERE have been vast armies and grand movements in ancient times. Here is a record of some of them : Sennacherib, the Bible tells us, lost in a single night 185,000 by the destroying angel. The city of Thebes had a hundred gates, and could send out at each gate 10,000 fighting men and 200 chariots, in all 1,000,000 men and 2,000 chariots. The army of Zerah, king of Ethiopia, consisted of 1,000,000 of men and 300 chariots of war. Sesostris, king of Egypt, led against his enemies 600,000 men, 24,000 cavalry, and 27,000 scythe-armed chariots; 1491, before Christ, Hamilcar went from Carthage, and landed near Palermo. He had a fleet of 2,000 ships and 300 small vessels, and a land force of 300,000 men. At the battle in which he was defeated, 150,000 men were slain. Ninus, the Assyrian king, about 2200 years before Christ, led against the Bactrians an army of 1,700,000 foot, 1,700,000 horse, and 16,000 chariots armed with scythes. Semiramis, employed 2,000,000 men in building Babylon. She took 100,000 prisoners at the Indus, and sank 1000 boats. A short time after the taking of Babylon, the force of Cyrus, consisted of 600,000 foot, 120,000 horses, and 2000 chariots armed with scythes. An army of Cambyses, 50,000 strong, was buried in the desert sands of Africa, by a south wind. When Xerxes arrived at Thermopylæ, his land and sea forces amounted to 2,624,610, exclusive of servants, eunuchs, women sutlers, &c., in all numbering 5,283,220. So say Herodotus, Plutarch and Isocrates. The army of Artaxerxes, before the battle of Cunaxa, amounted to about 1,200,000. Ten thousand horse and 100,000 foot fell on the fatal field of Issus. When Jerusalem, was taken by Titus, 1,100,000 perished in various ways. The army of Tamerlane, is said to have amounted to 1,600,000, and that of his antagonist, Bajazet, 1,400,000.