WAR ELEPHANTS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
The earliest mention of war elephants is made by Ctesias, where he
describes Cyrus as making war against King Amoræus, who placed a large
number of elephants in ambush, putting the horses of Cyrus to flight.
Ælian quotes Ctesias as saying that the king of the Indians went to
war with an army of ten thousand elephants, which was undoubtedly an
exaggeration.
In olden times, elephants seemed to be a necessity, and would-be
conquerors were often put to some remarkable straits to procure them.
Perhaps the most amusing substitution was that adopted by Queen
Semiramis, who made mock elephants out of hides, and put camels within
them, with what laughable results Diodorus Siculus shall tell us. The
story is so quaint, and replete with curious situations, that I give it
complete in the language of the old historian:—
“Semiramis, having settled her affairs in Egypt and Ethiopia, returned
with her army into Asia to Bactria; and now having a great army, and
enjoying a long peace, she had a longing desire to perform some notable
exploit by her arms. Hearing, therefore, that the Indians were the
greatest nation in the whole world, and had the largest and richest
tract of land of all others, she resolved to make war upon them.
“Stabrobates was at that time king, who had innumerable forces, and many
elephants, bravely accoutred, and fitted to strike terror into the hearts
of his enemies. For India, for the pleasantness of the country, excelled
all others; being watered in every place with many rivers, so that the
land yielded every year a double crop; and by that means was so rich,
and so abounded with plenty of all things necessary for the sustenance
of man’s life, that it supplied the inhabitants continually with such
things as made them excessively rich, insomuch that it was never known
that there was ever any famine amongst them, the climate being so happy
and favorable; and upon that account, likewise, there is an incredible
number of elephants, which for courage, and strength of body, far excel
those in Africa. Moreover, this country abounds in gold, silver, brass,
iron, and precious stones of all sorts, both for profit and pleasure.
All of which being noised abroad, so stirred up the spirit of Semiramis,
that (though she had no provocation given her) yet she was resolved upon
the war against the Indians. But knowing that she had need of great
forces, she sent despatches to all the provinces, with command to the
governors to list the choicest young men they could find; ordering the
proportion of soldiers every province and country should send forth,
according to the largeness of it; and commanded that all should furnish
themselves with new armor and arms, and all appear in three years’ time
at a general rendezvous in Bactria, bravely armed and accoutred in all
points. And having sent for shipwrights out of Phoenicia, Syria, Cyprus,
and other places bordering upon the seacoasts, she prepared timber for
them fit for the purpose, and ordered them to build vessels, that might
be taken asunder, and conveyed from place to place whenever she pleased.
For the river Indus bordering upon that kingdom, being the greatest in
those parts, she stood in need of many river-boats to pass it, in order
to repress the Indians. But being there was no timber near that river,
she was necessitated to convey the boats thither by land from Bactria.
She further considered, that she was much inferior to the Indians in
elephants (which were absolutely necessary for her to make use of): she
therefore contrived to have beasts that should resemble them, hoping by
this means to strike a terror into the Indians, who believed that there
were no elephants in any place but in India. To this end, she provided
three hundred thousand black oxen, and distributed the flesh amongst a
company of ordinary mechanics, and such fellows as she had to play the
cobblers for her, and ordered them, by stitching the skins together,
and stuffing them with straw, to imitate the shape of an elephant; and
in every one of them she put a man to govern them, and a camel to carry
them, so that at a distance they appeared to all that saw them, as if
they were really such beasts.
“They that were employed in this work, wrought at it night and day, in
a place which was walled round for the purpose, and guards set at every
gate, that none might be admitted either to go in or out, to the end that
none might see what they were doing, lest it should be noised abroad, and
come to the ears of the Indians.
“Having therefore provided shipping and elephants in the space of two
years, in the third she rendezvoused all her forces in Bactria. Her army
consisted (as Ctesias says) of three millions of foot, two hundred
thousand horse, a hundred thousand chariots, and a hundred thousand men,
mounted upon camels, with swords four cubits long. The boats that might
be taken asunder, were two thousand; which the camels carried by land as
they did the mock-elephants, as we have before declared. The soldiers
made their horses familiar with these feigned beasts, by bringing them
often to them, lest they should be terrified at the sight of them; which
Perseus imitated many ages after, when he was to fight with the Romans,
who had elephants in their army out of Africa. However, this contrivance
proved to be of no advantage, either to him or her, as will appear in
issue herein a little after related.
“When Stabrobates, the Indian king, heard of these great armies, and
the mighty preparations made against him, he did all he could to excel
Semiramis in every thing. And first, he built of great canes four
thousand river-boats, for abundance of these canes grow in India about
the rivers; and ferns, so thick as a man can scarce fathom; and vessels
made of these reeds (they say) are exceeding useful, because they will
never rot or be worm-eaten.
“He was very diligent, likewise, in preparing of arms, and going from
place to place throughout all India, and so raised a far greater army
than that of Semiramis. To his former number of elephants he added more,
which he took by hunting, and furnished them all with every thing that
might make them look terrible in the face of their enemies; so that, by
their multitude and the completeness of their armor in all points, it
seemed above the strength and power of man to bear up against the violent
shock of these creatures.
[Illustration: PLATE XXI.
ANCIENT ELEPHANT MEDALLIONS.]
“Having, therefore, made all these preparations, he sent ambassadors to
Semiramis (as she was on her march towards him), to complain and upbraid
her for beginning a war without any provocation or injury offered her;
and by his private letters, taxed her with a dissolute course of life;
and vowed (calling the gods to witness), that, if he conquered her,
he would nail her to the cross. When she read the letter, she smiled,
and said the Indian should presently have a trial of her valor by her
actions. When she came up with her army to the river Indus, she found
the enemy’s fleet drawn up in a line of battle; whereupon she forthwith
drew up her own, and, having manned it with the stoutest soldiers,
joined battle, yet so ordering the matter as to have her land-forces
ready upon the shore, to be assisting as there should be occasion. After
a long and sharp fight, with marks of valor on both sides, Semiramis
was at length victorious, and sunk a thousand of the enemy’s vessels,
and took a great number of prisoners. Puffed up with this success, she
took in the cities and islands that lay in the river, and carried away
an hundred thousand captives. After this, the Indian king drew off his
army (as if he fled for fear), but in truth to decoy his enemies to pass
the river. Semiramis, therefore (seeing all things fall out according
to her wish), laid a broad bridge of boats (at a vast charge) over the
river, and thereby passed over all her forces, leaving only threescore
thousand to guard the bridge, and with the rest of her army pursued the
Indians. She placed the mock-elephants in the front, that the enemy’s
scouts might presently inform the king what multitudes of elephants
she had in her army: and she was not deceived in her hopes; for when
the spies gave an account to the Indians what a great multitude of
these creatures were advancing towards them, they were all in amaze,
inquiring among themselves, whence the Assyrians should be supplied
with such a vast number of elephants: but the cheat could not long be
concealed; for some of Semiramis’s soldiers, being laid by the heels for
their carelessness upon the guard (through fear of further punishment),
made their escape, and fled to the enemy, and undeceived them as to
the elephants; upon which the Indian king was mightily encouraged, and
caused notice of the delusion to be spread through the whole army, and
then, forthwith, marched with all force against the Assyrians; Semiramis,
on the other hand, doing the like. When they approached near one to
another, Stabrobates, the Indian king, placed his horse and chariots
in the vanguard, at a good distance before the main body of his army.
The queen, having placed her mock-elephants at the like distance from
her main body, valiantly received her enemy’s charge: but the Indian
horse were most strangely terrified; for in regard, the phantasms at a
distance seemed to be real elephants, the horses of the Indians (being
inured to these creatures) pressed boldly and undauntedly forward; but
when they came near, and saw another sort of beast than usual, and the
smell and every thing else almost being strange and new to them, they
broke in with great terror and confusion, one upon another, so that they
cast some of their riders headlong to the ground, and ran away with
others (as the lot happened) into the midst of their enemies; whereupon
Semiramis, readily making use of her advantage, with a body of choice
men, fell in upon them, and routed them, forcing them back to their main
body: and though Stabrobates was something astonished at this unexpected
defeat, yet he brought up his foot against the enemy, with his elephants
in the front; he himself was in the right wing, mounted upon a stately
elephant, and made a fierce charge upon the queen herself, who happened
then to be opposite to him in the left. And though the mock-elephants in
Semiramis’s army did the like, yet they stood the violent shock of the
other but a little while: for the Indian beasts, being both exceeding
strong and stout, easily bore down and destroyed all that opposed them,
so that there was a great slaughter; for some they trampled under foot,
others they rent in pieces with their teeth, and tossed up others with
their trunks into the air. The ground, therefore, being covered with
heaps of dead carcasses, and nothing but death and destruction to be
seen on every hand, so that all were full of horror and amazement, none
durst keep their order or ranks any longer. Upon which the whole Assyrian
army fled outright: and the Indian king encountered with Semiramis, and
first wounded her with an arrow in the arm, and afterwards with a dart
(in wheeling about) in the shoulder; whereupon the queen (her wounds not
being mortal) fled, and by the swiftness of her horse (which far exceeded
the other that pursued her), she got off.”
Curiously enough, in early times the camel was used in Persia, instead
of the elephant, to carry burdens. The name of the elephant is not found
in the Hebrew language; but the Grecian and Roman poets made frequent
mention of it one hundred years before the time of Alexander, so that he
must have known something of the strange animal when he contemplated his
Indian invasion. He first met them in the flesh, according to Arrian, in
the battle of Arbela, where he defeated the king of Persia, who had a few
in his army, which Alexander captured. Soon after this he was presented
with a number which had been brought from India by Darius, and later the
victorious army of the great soldier captured a number on the banks of
the Indus. It is known that Alexander was familiar with the advantages
to be derived from elephants, but whether he added them immediately to
his army is not known. One military writer, Polyænus, states that he did,
and that a fine battalion of elephants was placed upon the left wing of
the Macedonian army. But, on the other hand, Alexander said, according
to Quintus Curtius, “I have so despised those animals, that, when I had
them at my command, I did not employ them.” Alexander is pictured on a
medal, a cut of which was published in the “Museum Cuspinianum,” edited
by Laurentius Legatus, as riding in a chariot drawn by elephants when
entering Babylon.
When Alexander passed the Indus, he met the army of King Porus with a
large force of elephants. “There,” writes Quintus Curtius, “stood those
huge bulks of overgrown bodies, the elephants; which, being on purpose
provoked, filled the air with a horrible noise.” The river had to be
passed with boats; and the great danger to be apprehended was, that the
horses of the Greeks, upon perceiving the elephants, would be seized
with fear, and leap into the water. For several days the Macedonians
and the Indians lay encamped on the opposite banks of the river, the
one effecting to attempt the passage by stratagem, the other constantly
resisting the attempt with the terror of the elephants. Porus, however,
relaxing in his watchfulness, and being deceived by a division of a part
of the army of Alexander, the great body of the Macedonians were safely
conveyed across. But the Indian king was resolved not to yield up his
dominions without a struggle. “He drew up his army in order of battle,”
says Arrian, upon “a plain where the soil was not incommodious by reason
of the slippery clay, but firm and sandy, and every way fit wheeling his
chariots round upon. First, he placed the elephants in the front, at the
distance of one hundred feet from each other, to cover the whole body of
foot, and at the same time to strike a terror into Alexander’s horse;
for he imagined that none, either horse or foot, would be so hardy as
to endeavor to penetrate through the spaces between the elephants. The
horsemen, he thought, could not, because their horses would be terrified
at the sight; and the foot would not dare, because the armed soldiers
would be ready to gall them on each hand, and the elephants to trample
them under their feet. The foot possessed the next rank. They were not,
indeed, placed in the same order with the elephants, but so small a way
behind that they seemed to fill up the interstices. At the extremities of
each wing he placed elephants bearing huge wooden towers, wherein were
armed men. The foot were defended on each hand by the horse, and the
horse by the chariots, which were placed before them.”
“With the caution which is the best characteristic of a skillful general,
Alexander resolved to avoid a direct attack upon the main body of the
elephants. Perhaps the alarm which his soldiers are described to have
felt at ‘those beasts, which, being disposed amongst the men in front, at
a distance bore the appearance of towers,’ might have somewhat influenced
this determination. The elephant which carried Porus himself, a man of
extraordinary stature, was greatly superior to all the lest in height.
Alexander is described as rejoicing in the splendid appearance of the
enemy which he trusted to subdue. ‘At last I have met with a danger
suitable to the greatness of my soul.’ The long pikes of the Macedonian
phalanx, the rapid movements of the cavalry, and the cloud of arrows
poured in by the light-armed Thracians, soon spread a panic amongst the
Indians. But the elephants for a long time sustained the assaults of
their impetuous enemies. They trampled the infantry under their feet; and
‘the most dismal thing of all was when these animals took up the armed
soldiers with their trunks, and delivered them up to their governors on
their backs.’ The day was far spent, and still the fight was doubtful,
till at length the Macedonians directed all their power against the
sagacious beasts that threatened to baffle the skill and bravery of the
most disciplined troops of the earth. The Greeks chopped their legs with
axes, and cut off their trunks with a crooked weapon resembling a scythe.
While the infantry of Alexander thus encountered the principal strength
of the Indians, his cavalry closed round them in overwhelming masses.
‘And the beasts now being pent up in a narrow space, and violently
enraged, did no less mischief to their own men than the enemy; and as
they tossed and moved about, multitudes were trampled to death; besides,
the horse being confined among the elephants, a huge slaughter ensued,
for many of the governors of the beasts being slain by the archers, and
the elephants themselves, partly enraged with their wounds, and partly
for want of riders, no longer kept any certain station in the battle, but
running forwards, as if madness had seized them, they pushed down, slew,
and trampled under foot friends and foes without distinction; only, the
Macedonians, having the advantage of a more free and open space, gave
way, and made room for the furious beasts to rush through their ranks,
but slew them whenever they attempted to return. But the beasts at last,
quite wearied out with wounds and toil, were no longer able to push with
their usual force, but only made a hideous noise, and, moving their
fore-feet heavily, passed out of the battle.”
“Although his forces were scattered all around him, the courage of the
Indian king remained unconquerable. Exposed ‘as a mark at which every one
levelled,’ he had received nine wounds, before and behind; but he still
continued to hurl his javelins at the enemy, till they might be said
‘to drop from his faint arm, rather than be delivered.’ The governor of
Porus’s elephant at last put the beast to flight, and Alexander himself
slowly followed him upon a wounded horse. At length Porus, exhausted
by his wounds, slid down from the back of the elephant; and the Indian
guide, thinking the king desired to alight, commanded the animal to kneel
down. The whole of the elephants were accustomed to imitate the movements
of that upon which the king rode; and in like manner they instantly knelt
down, and thus became a prey to the conquerors. Their habitual obedience
to their masters involved their common ruin.”
An interesting medal is known to antiquarians, which is supposed to
commemorate this victory of Alexander over Porus. On one side is shown
the head of Alexander, covered with an elephant’s head-skin, and on the
other a representation of Minerva, armed with a helmet, shield, and
spear, and before her an eagle holding lightning in its talons. Whether
Alexander used the elephants he captured, or not, is not known; but he
preserved them, and created a new office,—the _elephantarch_, or governor
of the elephants, whose business it was to take entire charge of them.
At the death of Alexander, great numbers of elephants were owned by the
Macedonians; and his successors, who had, perhaps, more faith in them for
purposes of war, often used them in many of the sanguinary engagements of
their time.
Many of the elephants of King Porus were afterwards employed by Eumenes;
and, in his fiercely contested battle with Antigonus, elephants were
used on both sides. In the attack made upon the city of Megapolis by
Polysperchon, the latter employed sixty-five elephants which were
considered invincible; but the foot-soldiers of the other army stole out,
and built ditches in front of them, placing upright spears and spikes
in them, and covering all with grass and leaves. When the elephants and
the army charged, the great animals fell into the traps, and during the
confusion the entire force was routed.
In those times the expense of keeping elephants was enormous, and
oftentimes the animals suffered greatly. At the siege of Pydua, in
Macedonia, the elephants were obliged to eat sawdust; and many died,
or, as Diodorus Siculus says, “pined away for want of food.” In the
histories of the wars that were waged between the generals of Alexander
and Ptolemy, elephants are often mentioned, and were evidently relied
upon more than any branch of the service. Diodorus Siculus says, when
Perdiccas marched to the Nile, and assaulted the fort called the “Camel’s
Wall,” he “boldly led up his army close to the fort, and forthwith the
targeteers with their ladders mounted the wall; and those that rode upon
elephants threw down the fortifications, and demolished the bulwarks.
Whereupon Ptolemy, with those of his own guard about him, to encourage
the rest of his officers and friends manfully to behave themselves,
catched hold of a sarissa, and mounted the bulwark; and so, being on
the higher ground, struck out the eyes of the foremost elephant, and
wounded the Indian that sat upon him; and as for those that scaled the
walls, he hurled them down, dreadfully cut and wounded, into the river.
After his example, Ptolemy’s friends valiantly exerted themselves;
and, by killing the Indian that governed the next elephant, the beast
became unserviceable.” When Ptolemy and Seleucus attacked Demetrius at
Gaza, their first care was to protect their army from the shock of the
elephants of their enemy; and for this purpose they prepared “an iron
palisado, sharp-pointed with iron, and fastened together with chains.”
That this precaution was not taken in vain, the same author shows in the
following: “And now, when the fight between the horse had been a long
time doubtful, the elephants, forced on by the Indians, made so terrible
an onset that it appeared impossible for any force to have stood against
them. But when they came up to the palisado, the darters and archers
sorely galled both the beasts and their riders; and being still forced
on, and whipt by the Indians, some of them stuck upon the sharp points
of the palisado, with which, besides the multitude of the darts and
arrows that galled them, they were in such pain and torment that they
caused a horrible tumult and confusion: for these creatures, in plain and
level places, bear down all before them; but in those which are rough
and craggy, they are of no use or service, because of the tenderness of
their feet. Ptolemy, therefore, wisely foreseeing of what advantage this
palisado would be, by that means frustrated the rage and fury of the
beasts. At length, most of the Indians that rode them being killed, all
the elephants were taken, upon which the greatest part of Demetrius’s
horse were in such a consternation that they forthwith fled.”
Where elephants created so much confusion and demoralization, it was
but natural that the great generals should invent mechanical devices to
rout them in turn, and create disorder; and we read that Ptolemy was
often successful. Yet he fully appreciated the value of the elephants;
and, after meeting them in several engagements, he determined to possess
an elephant army of his own. The enemy obtained their elephants from
India; and, although the African elephants were not considered so well
fitted for war purposes, he decided to secure his recruits from the Dark
Continent. He immediately issued an edict prohibiting their slaughter,
and ordered that they be captured alive. Exactly where these great
creatures were obtained would be interesting to know, but Ptolemy’s
historians do not tell us. Ptolemy III. has left an inscription called
adulis, found in the travels of Cosmas, a traveller of the sixth century,
to the effect that the elephants were obtained from Ethiopia, and the
country of the Troglodytes.
[Illustration: PLATE XXII.
ANCIENT ELEPHANT MEDALLIONS.]
The famous battle of Raphia, between Ptolemy Philopator, the fourth of
the dynasty, and Antiochus the Great, in which numbers of elephants were
employed, is thus described by Polybius: “The signal was sounded to
engage; and the elephants, approaching first, began the combat. Among
those that belonged to Ptolemy, there were some that advanced boldly
against their adversaries. It was then pleasing to behold the soldiers
engaged in close combat from the towers, and pushing against each other
with their spears. But the beasts themselves afforded a far nobler
spectacle, as they rushed together, front to front, with the greatest
force and fury. For this is the manner in which they fight. Twisting
their trunks together, they strive, each of them with his utmost force,
to maintain his own ground, and to move his adversary from his place;
and when the strongest of them has at last pushed aside the trunk of
the other, and forced him to turn his flank, he then pierces him with
his tusks in the same manner as bulls in fighting wound each other
with their horns. But the greater part of the beasts that belonged to
Ptolemy declined the combat. For this usually happens to the elephants of
Afric, which are unable to support either the smell or cry of the Indian
elephants. Or rather, perhaps, they are struck with terror at the view of
their enormous size and strength; since even before they approach near
together, they frequently turn their backs, and fly. And this it was
which at this time happened. As soon, therefore, as these animals, being
thus disordered by their fears, had fallen against the ranks of their own
army, and forced the royal guards to break the line, Antiochus, seizing
the occasion, and advancing round on the outside of the elephants,
charged the cavalry, which was commanded by Polycrates, in the extremity
of the left wing of Ptolemy. At the same time, also, the Grecian
mercenaries, who stood within the elephants, near the phalanx, advanced
with fury against the peltastæ, and routed them with little difficulty,
because their ranks, likewise, were already broken by the elephants. Thus
the whole left wing of the army of Ptolemy was defeated, and forced to
fly.”
One hundred and fifty years after this, a successor of Antiochus employed
elephants in battles against the Jews; and nearly all the monarchs who
succeeded Alexander employed them in war. They were used in Syria; and
Seleucus Nicator valued them so highly, that, according to Strabo, he
gave Sandrocottus an entire province on the Indus for five hundred of
the animals. They were stabled at Apamea, in Syria; so that elephants
commanded a high price, even in these early times. Two centuries later,
when Syria and various Eastern countries became tributary to Rome,
the war elephant fell into disuse; and one of the last references to
it in Syria is found on a coin struck in honor of Antiochus, surnamed
Epiphanes Dionysius, who succeeded to the throne in the two hundred and
twenty-fifth era of the Seleucidæ (87 B.C.). It represents an elephant
bearing a torch, after the custom of Syrian monarchs; a horn of plenty
being shown behind it. (See Plates XXI., XXII.)