# Armies very small in ME



## EL GALLO (Apr 18, 2003)

Why were armies on ME that small. I mean, the Rohirrim had an army of 12, 000 men, the Isengards one of about 15, 000 and Mordor's army has less than 15, 000 soldiers and it was enough to rule the ME.


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## Anamatar IV (Apr 18, 2003)

Mordor actually had an army (after the battle of the Pelannor Fields) of 60-70 thousand. Rohan had considerably less than 12 thousand I think. Think of it as there weren't 6 billion people in Middle-earth.


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## EL GALLO (Apr 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Anamatar IV _
> *Think of it as there weren't 6 billion people in Middle-earth. *


Even if there weren't 6 billion people in ME armies should have been greater. Thte belgae had an armiy of 150,000 soldiers in Roman times, and they were just a tribe. The persians had an army of about 250,000 men in a time when the Earth population was of about 300 million of people.


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## Beorn (Apr 18, 2003)

You may wish to check out this absolutely awesome thread on the subject.


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## JeffF. (Apr 22, 2003)

*low populations*

The reason for the relatively small armies is the low populations. The Hobbit and LOTR both indicate a very low population in this area of Middle Earth. Tolkien describes the Hobbit population as several thousand (probably not including Buckland and definitely not icluding Bree) in an area roughly the size of SE England. Apparently whole tracks of land in Eriador, the Brownlands and Mirkwood were not peopled. Harad and Rhun seem to have a higher population density juding by their contributions to Sauron's Army. 

Your estimate for Sauron's Army as 15,000 is way off. There were more than 60,000 at the Black Gate, the haradrim alone numbered 18,000 at Minas Tirith and the force of Orcs and Easterlings blocking the Rohirrim's road was more than 6,000. This did not include the Corsairs attacking the coasts of Gondor, the armies of Dol Guldor attacking Lothlorien and Thranduil's kingdom and the Easterlings attacking Dale and the Dwarf kingdom of Eriador. The total is closer to ten times your estimate.


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## krash8765 (Apr 22, 2003)

ya Middle-earth was not like the U.S. or any country or continent we see today. It was largely desolate and probably if u added up all the races did not even have 1 million people, elves etc total. There just wasnt alot of people.


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## EL GALLO (Apr 22, 2003)

*Re: low populations*



> _Originally posted by JeffF. _
> *Your estimate for Sauron's Army as 15,000 is way off. *


I was meaning 150,000 but thanks for your reply.


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## Inderjit S (Apr 23, 2003)

The fact of the matter is that the population of the T.A was always going to be low. The S.A was pretty destructive. Sauron destroyed a lot of the Noldor, and many of the pre-Marachians in Rhovanion, as well as the indigenous population of Eriador, such as the Borrim, whilst the Last Alliance, as Elrond points out, was catastrophic in terms of live lost, for men and Elves. Then in the T.A, we have the Kinstrife, the Fall of Arnor and the Plague, whilst the Longbeard Dwarves lost a lot of their population in Moria's fall and in the War of Orcs and Dwarves.


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