Are troop numbers from most historical battles exaggerated?

[Ludicus]

It's not an easy task for an historian -a century or more later- to get the right number of troops.(1)
Even the Romans, during the Republic, they often had no idea how many enemies they were fighting in a battle, and the the Roman generals never had access to reliable figures (2)

(1)
Perseus Under Philologic: Liv. 6.12 (excerpt)

I have no doubt that my readers will be tired of such a long record of incessant wars with the Volscians, but they will also be struck with the same difficulty which I have myself felt whilst examining the authorities who lived nearer to the period, namely, from what source did the Volscians obtain sufficient soldiers after so many defeats? Since this point has been passed over by the ancient writers, what can I do more than express an opinion such as any one may form from his own inferences?...

----

(2)




Chapter,
Body accounts, or who killed whom, page 105

Roman generals admittedly never had access to reliable figures in the first place. Before a battle, scouts could only estimate the numerical strength of the enemy; nor did the chaos afterwards lend itself to the compilation of accurate body counts on either side.
To make matters worse, as one scholar has written," because Saul slew his thousands and David his tens of thousands, David was the better man".

Returning commanders, needed to impress a difficult audience in the senate, would enumerate their achievements at length and no doubt stretched the truth sometimes. Their goal was to make dignitas, otherwise a slippery concept, quantifiable.
That was how the system worked, and the fact that everyone knew it did nothing to stifle the impulse to exaggerate.
Often enough the bragging paid off and blatantly self-aggrandizing reports gained a measure of public sanction through triumphs celebrated in their honor.

By the same token statistics could illustrate failure as well success: critics often cited numbers to deflate puffed-up claims or to offset the tallies of enemy dead by focusing attention on Roman casualties instead.
Even today, the public welcomes news of victory with muted enthusiasm when it comes at too high price. Narratives marked by all these familiar patterns of distortion helped to shape collective memory and eventually filtered they way into historical record.

Get the book and read also the pages 106-110

[Condottiere 40K]

We know in one instance, Saul made David scalp his opponents to get a precise count.

[Ludicus]

We know in one instance, Saul made David scalp his opponents to get a precise count.

And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of musick. And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.

Samuel 18:6-9

Hehe.