Good point - Herodotus - secondary source - states that the Persians invaded Greece with an army of two million men (or three - can't remember off the top of my head). Modern estimates say it has to be much less than that. So if I write an HF book about it and say "there were two million men in the army", am I right or wrong?And what of straight history? How “factual” is it?
That's the problem with "facts" - especially with Ancient Historicals - they tend to change depending on the evidence that's dug up. There's also the issue of revisionist history that wants to skew things to fit a particular political viewpoint. At the end of the day, I guess we should just try to write good stories - or what we think are good stories - as being discussed in another thread, one person's good is another's pile of poo!