[1578] See an account of this, and of the feats performed by the elephants, in Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 11.—B.
[1579] The Pyrrhic dance has been referred to in the last Book, c. 57. p. 231. It is not improbable that the elephants employed in this dance were caparisoned with armour.
[1580] However ill adapted the elephant may appear, from its size and form, for this feat, we have the testimony of Seneca, Suetonius, Dion Cassius, and Julian, to the truth of the fact.—B.
[1581] Plutarch, in his treatise on the Shrewdness of Animals, tells us that this wonderful circumstance happened at Rome.
[1582] “Eadem illa meditantem,” is the expression. It would be curious to know in what way the elephant showed that he was “conning” over his lesson.
[1583] Suetonius is supposed to allude to this circumstance.—B. He tells us that a horseman ascended a tight rope on an elephant’s back.
[1584] Ælian informs us, that he had seen an elephant write Latin characters. Hardouin remarks, that the Greek would be Αὐτὸς ἐγὼ τάδ’ ἔγραψα, λαφυρά τε Κελτ’ ἀνέθηκα.
[1585] See B. iii. c. 9.
[1586] As to the tusks of the elephant, no doubt the opinion of Herodotus, B. iii. c. 97, is correct, that they are teeth, and not horns. They are essentially composed of the same substance with the other teeth, and, like them, are inserted into the jaw, and not into the os frontis, as is the case with horns.—B.
[1587] Not improbably, the great quantity of fossil ivory which has been found, may have given rise to this tale. We have in Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 581, a long extract from Cuvier’s “Recherches sur les ossements fossiles,” in which he gives an account of the parts of the world in which the bones of the elephant have been discovered.—B.