This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. These huge beasts would have terrified men and horses both visually and orally with their trumpeting. Still, their symbolic importance for Carthage is expressed on a series of Hannibal’s coinage, which depict a cloaked rider with a goad in his hand, but no turret. Huge, exotic, and frightening the life out of an unprepared enemy they seemed the perfect weapon in an age where developments in warfare were very limited. In the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, the elephants carried rugs on their backs, called hatthatthara in the Buddhist Pali works. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2020) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. License. Allegedly the cognomen of Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) derived from the Moorish word for “elephant” (caesai), rather than from caesius or caeruleus (pertaining to the color of the sky). During the ensuing fight, the enemy’s elephants trampled foot soldiers indiscriminately in the confusion when attacked from the flank by the Macedonian cavalry. In the ancient world, moreover, the elephant was also utilized as a machine of war. Are there peacocks and elephants in Ancient Greece (4000 BC)? Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia Limited is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. They were established as rulers of Mauretania (approx. Cartwright, Mark. According to Patrick Winn, a correspondent for The World, war elephants may be divided into two types: those which participate in battles and those used for logistical purposes. The encounter was one of the largest pitch battles of the Hellenistic period, and supposedly the only ancient battle in which African elephants fought Indian. In antiquity, two elephants were known – the Asian elephant ( Elephas maximus) and the African Forest elephant ( Loxodonta cyclotis). We were the first major power to field elephants on a large scale on battlefield. Some people might wonder why the world is still so hung up on ancient Greek myths when they are nothing but stories and they came from thousands of years ago. During the succession crisis that erupted at Alexander’s sudden death, elephants were employed not only when opposing factions were about to engage each other in fighting, but also to execute the death sentence after the rivals were put on ad-hoc trial. The rider was crucial as he had trained the animal for years and it would obey only his commands. Many of Alexander’s successors went one step further and employed them in battle proper. All three attributes symbolize Alexander’s divine sonship and the attributes portray him as the heroic descendant of the slayer of demons, underlying the associations between the mythic figures of Dionysus and Heracles (both sons of Zeus), Shiva (an emanation of Indra) and Krishna (an avatar of Vishnu), as well as Horus (the reincarnation of Osiris). Elephant corps did not have everything their own way, of course. The latter is now almost extinct and only found in the Gambia; it was smaller than the, at the time unknown, African elephant of central and southern Africa (Loxodonta africana), which explains why ancient writers all claimed the Indian elephant was larger than the African. After the death of her parents, Octavian brought her to Rome and subsequently married her to King Juba II of Numidia, son of Juba I. Elephant Symbolism on the Coins of Ptolemy Iby Branko van Oppen (CC BY-NC-SA). Thank you! In the search for ever more impressive and lethal weapons to shock the enemy and bring total victory the armies of ancient Greece, Carthage, and even sometimes Rome turned to the elephant. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/article/1381/. That’s assuming the … When Ptolemy (c. 367-282 BCE), the appointed governor of Egypt, transferred said funerary cortege to Memphis, the Macedonian regent Perdiccas retaliated by invading Egypt with the royal army, including elephants (c. 321/0 BCE). Related Content Cleopatra Selene II, Boscorealeby Hervé Lewandowski (Copyright), Let us briefly return to the Hellenistic period and quickly make our way back eastwards. The ram’s horn was thus a divine attribute associated with panic and madness. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons Today’s placid scenes along the verdant shores of Greece’s Pinios River, in Thessaly, belie its ancient history as the home of hippopotamuses, bison and even elephants, according to geologist/paleontologist and professor Athanassios Athanassiou. Thus its categorization was further complicated by the fact that an army, which deployed elephants might consider them allies, while the opposing army would consider them adversaries. Able to readily acquire African elephants from the Atlas forest region they formed an elephant corps from the 260’s BCE. Upcoming Events 2020 Community Moderator Election. Indra, however, is the son of Dyaus Pitrā (“Sky Father”), which parallels Zeus Pater and Jupiter. Oppen, Branko V. "Elephants in Hellenistic History & Art." We have also been recommended for educational use by the following publications: Ancient History Encyclopedia Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. Elephants, being only available from Africa or Asia, were expensive commodities to acquire for Mediterranean powers. The damage an elephant - let alone several hundred - could inflict was enormous, but first the beast had to be compelled to fight. Greek authors continued to associate elephants with legends and fabulous monsters – that is, for our modern mind non-existing figments of ancient imagination. Some ancient sources claim that elephants were given wine before battle in order to rouse them into a fighting frenzy. That is to say, the headdress represents the heroic appropriation of a monstrous attribute as an emblem of victory over a fabled foe. Ancient History Encyclopedia Limited is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. After a few centuries when elephants were out of vogue, the Sasanians in Persia revived the use of war elephants, fielding the Indian species from the 3rd century CE onwards, albeit, largely for logistics and during sieges. Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe. Despite the cost and difficulties, and because in antiquity the evolution in weaponry was extremely slow, the attraction of such large animals trampling all over the enemy remained. Web. As the gates of Susa were opened for Alexander, his forces acquired another twelve elephants. Diodorus related that Indian elephants were outfitted to strike terror in warfare against the invading Assyrian queen Semiramis. Bibliography 18 Dec 2020. https://www.ancient.eu/article/1381/. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 20 May 2019. From the reign of Alexander the Great elephants became associated with Hellenistic military processions and coinage often expressed the symbolic connection between elephants and military victories. Farther along the campaign, another 125-150 elephants were obtained in the Indus Valley as a gift of a local prince and through hunting. ". In later times, the use of elephants was restricted to peace-time activities such as spectacles in the Roman arenas and circuses for public entertainment or as an impressive addition to public processions. While reinforcements of African forest elephants would eventually reach Hannibal, they failed to assert any decisive effect even at the final Battle of Zama (201 BCE). T. and once in the N. T. The animal itself is named only in the Apocrypha, always as an engine of war. The king commemorated his victory by sacrificing four of his enemy’s elephants. Replaced Middle English olifant (fro… Seleukos I Nikator famously swapped parts of his eastern empire to gain 500 elephants from Indian emperor Chandragupta in 305 BCE. Most war elephants deployed in the Hellenistic period derived from India. They were deployed on the battlefield to strike terror into the enemy, however, since fear was considered divinely inspired, elephants can be interpreted as religious symbols even in warfare. Indeed, the Seleucid Empire made sure to exclusively control the traffic in Asian elephants. Troops became more mobiIe, siege-craft became just as common as open battles, and artillery came to the fore. The first classical author to write about elephants, Herodotus, mentioned them among various more or less fabulous creatures and wild beasts, such as lions, bears, snakes, serpents, unicorns, dog-headed men, headless men, and savages. More historically, Juba of Numidia (approx. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Detail of Roman Sarcophagus with an Elephantby Carole Raddato (CC BY-SA). The Mauryans used three riders, all archers, with … Indeed, Caesar’s silver denarius coinage of his moving mint (c. 50-45 BCE) significantly employed the elephant trampling a serpent as he crossed the Rubicon River as an allusion to the victory of good over evil. On many Hellenistic-style coins, signet rings and seal stones from Graeco-Bactria and Graeco-India elephants are depicted – a tradition that dates back to Harappan stamps-seals from the 3rd and 2nd millennium BCE. After Perdiccas’ disastrous defeat about 50-60 elephants apparently fell to Ptolemy. For instance, Indra, the Lord of Heaven, rides a white elephant, which symbolizes his victory over the dragon Vritra, his adversary. Elephants were historically deployed on the battlefield to strike terror into enemy troops inexperienced with their sight. "Elephants in Greek & Roman Warfare." The supreme deity Shiva is considered both benign and frightful. One such small-scale statuette (now in New York), perhaps based on large-scale sculpture, depicts Alexander in the act of combat, riding a (now missing) animal, wearing the elephant scalp on his head. Vantage point in India descended from Heracles, the priest at Siwah confirmed that Alexander was believed to divinely. 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