How did small armies compensate for their size in the ancient era, when posed against a larger army?

Question

I have been watching a lot of ancient history shows on youtube about army tactics, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why a smaller army would every beat a larger army. To me, the larger army would square up against the opponents, and then simply flank the enemy, which would usually result in routing. How would an ancient era deal with the problem of getting flanked? Did it simply just all come down to terrain?

Edit: Thank you so much for your answers! I love learning about this kind of stuff, so this has been a lot of fun. Maybe I’m still confused about how an army would engage and disengage an army to remain mobile to avoid flanks, could anyone provide some insights into this?

In: Other

Answer 1

First of all, you have to realise wars were 99% strategy and 1% battles.

Moving armies, keeping them fed, happy, healthy and well trained were the major worries. Planning supply routes and keeping them safe was crucial especially when moving through friendly territory where you couldn’t loot much.

All of the above required a giant amount of administrative work but is not as interesting as the battle itself and it’s hard to make a 20 minute youtube video about it.

As for battles itself it’s easy for us to dream up a scenario where you flank an enemy. Flanking is a very complex maneuver however and it’s not as easy to execute as you might imagine. You need to practice it so that the mostly illiterate soldiers you lead know what you mean by flanking. You need officers who are able to communicate it. You need to work with imperfect information since getting information around on a battlefield is not easy.

The last point is perhaps one of the most understated. You can’t command an army from the frontline or you pain a giant target on your back. Any information you receive from other forces is delayed since most of it is relayed on foot. If the flanking force is more than 1 km away, in a forest, that’s at least an hour delay.

Then, even if you account for everything, you need to have soldiers that will trust you. Nobody wants to die so convincing your army to split and attack in smaller groups requires a huge amount of trust and discipline.