Many elephants were lost in the mountain passes, but enough were saved to make a formidable appearance in the battles of Ticinus and Trebia. How so many were taken over, considering the nature of the Alpine passes, is somewhat astonishing; and it is stated by Livy, that in some places the elephants of Macedon were delayed while special bridges were constructed for them to cross. Hannibal, on the other hand, pushed through with the energy that characterized all his movements; and the passage of his army and elephants through the Alps is one of the most remarkable feats in military history, ancient or modern.
Ancient history contains interesting accounts of the battles in which the elephant took part. Livy says that the Gauls, who were the allies of the Romans, fled before them. According to Appian, the Roman horse were alarmed at the sight and smell of the strange animals; and Silius Italicus gives the elephant of Hannibal full credit for all his victories. The poet of the Punic war thus, in characteristic language, describes a fight between an elephant and a Roman soldier:—
“For as
The towered elephants attempt to pass,
Into the flood with violence they fell
(As when a rock, torn from its native hill
By tempests, falls into the angry main);
And Trebia, afraid to entertain
Such monstrous bodies, flies before their beast,
Or shrinks beneath them, with their weight oppressed.