And I'm not talking about Rome or Carthage or Persia here, I'm talking about small not very populated states like Epirus (in the Pyrrhic War) and Macedon (in the Macedonian Wars), who were able to field at least 25000 men, which was already larger than many medieval armies and nearly as large as the fully mobilized French army at that time.
You might be interested in this recent discussion by u/Steelcan909, u/Iguana_on_a_stick, u/dandan_noodles and others