User blog comment:Tesla Man/Rise of the TDBU: Alexander the Great versus Xerxes/@comment-422690-20120320173747/@comment-181289-20120324002758

I know about Hannibals use of indigenous populations in his army, which also included some of the Northern Italian tribes. But it doesn't really matter who Xerxes recuited, his army was so large that it couldn't possibly survive off the Greek land, it had to be supplied, where as Hannibal's smaller army could gather a decent amout of food from the much more fertile Italian country side, Xerxes army, what ever it's size was extremly large and survining of the rocky Greek country side was not really an option, the Greeks themselves need to import food to sustain themselves, they couldn't produce enough food on there own fo there population