The east India trading company had several thousand man armies, has something simelar happened before?

by Carolus_Wrex

The east India trading company had enough men under weapons to effectively be called an army, is there any earlier times where something simelar ahs happend? And has there been anything since?

Itsalrightwithme

Can you improve the context of this question, please? What does "similar" mean? Similar to what?