The Ivory King: A popular history of the elephant and its allies

by Charles Frederick Holder

Curiously enough, for a period of eighty years after the Romans became familiar with the advantages of the elephant as a valuable adjunct to the service, they did not employ them. The warriors, however, were specially drilled in elephant warfare; and many devices were invented by the skilful generals to discomfit the huge animals. The great object was to turn the elephants upon their own masters, as we have seen; and to this end, the men were directed to fire their darts and arrows at the trunk of the elephant, which was known to be the most sensitive point. Chariots were constructed to bear men who carried enormously long spears. The horses were clothed in mail, and trained to charge at the elephants at full speed; and, as they passed, the spearmen would prod them in the trunk, and endeavor to demoralize them. This branch of the service was, necessarily, one of great danger, and the courageous lancers often lost their lives; horses, chariots, and men, all being crushed to death by the infuriated animals.

Another corps of elephant-men were armed with a peculiar armor, covered with long, sharp spikes, so that the elephant would not attempt to seize them with its trunk. Other soldiers were armed with slings, with which they threw stones at the driver of the elephant, it being their sole business to dismount him; while instruments that could propel their own darts were employed against the body of the elephant. Besides these offensive movements, the troops were drilled in the manner of receiving an elephant’s charge. They executed manœuvres in falling back as the animal came on, and in closing in to surround him. Such were a few of the methods employed against the elephant, which serve to show its importance in ancient warfare.

Rome was finally forced to use the elephant herself; and in the first action of the Macedonian war, they formed no inconspicuous corps of the Roman army.

In the third year of the war, according to Polybius, Titus Quintius Flaminius used them with signal advantage against the Macedonian king. In the second Macedonian war, thirty years later, Q. Martius Philippus employed them against Perseus, the last king of Macedon. The latter, unlike his predecessor, who conquered India, had neglected to provide himself with a corps of elephants; and his horses were utterly demoralized by the animals possessed by his enemy. Finding that elephants were necessary to success, he conceived the idea of manufacturing some bogus ones, after the fashion of Semiramis, quoted in a previous chapter, and had a number of wooden elephants made, in the interior of which was concealed a man, who blew upon a trumpet which led into the wooden throat, when the charge was ordered; hoping in this way to imitate living elephants. But the ruse did not succeed; and, after a war of four years, the Macedonians came under the Roman yoke.

In some of these wars, it often happened that the African elephant was marched against its Asiatic ally. This was the case in the battle of Magnesia, when the Roman arms were turned against Antiochus, king of Syria; and, according to the old writers, the African elephants of Scipio were much inferior in size and strength to the Indian ones of Antiochus. The reverse, at least regarding size, is true to-day; and the same was probably true then, African male elephants being at least a foot taller than their Asiatic cousins.

When Scipio found that his elephants were inferior, he placed them in his rear as a reserve; but they were routed, only fifteen escaping: while fifteen thousand men were slain. The Romans utterly defeated them, and insisted upon the same terms which we have seen the Carthaginians made,—Antiochus agreeing to deliver all his war elephants to Rome, and to train no more. If both parties had kept their word, the elephant would have fallen into disuse as a war-factor.

The Romans exacted a similar bond from Jugurtha (111 B.C.); killing large numbers, and continuing the war until the Numidian king consented, and delivered his elephants to Metellus (108 B.C.).

Julius Cæsar probably considered that elephants retarded active movements, and did not have a large corps of them; though a certain number were kept, presumably to re-assure the soldiers, in case the enemy should be supplied with an elephant corps. In his battle with Scipio in Africa, he was confronted with thirty of these animals, having towers of archers; but he sent his elephants to the rear, and succeeded in defeating his enemy.