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After we have seen the diorama in detail i want to tell you some general things about war elephants.
If you stand on an ancient battlefield and an elephant is charging at you,
it is quite easy to imagine that you would be very scared.
They are big animals, dangerous, quite fast and simply terrifying.
Let´s begin with the useage of elephants.
In Europe and the Mediterranean area they were mainly used between the 4th and 2nd century B.C.
In other culture areas like Southeast Asia or India they were used a lot longer.
In Europe they were used not that long.
The last important battle with elephants was at Thapsus,
in the 7th century the Sassanids used them against the Arabs, but without any success.
The Seleucids, Ptolemaics and the Epirotes in the Phyrric War mainly used Indian elephants,
the Carthaginians used mainly the African forest elephant which is extinct today. These were a bit smaller.
According to the historic accounts we know that such battle turrets on the back of elephants were only used by the Seleucids and Ptolemaics,
the Carthaginias didn´t use such constructions. The elephants just had a mahout riding on them, no further crew was added.
Now we have to ask "how effective were these elephants actually?"
There is a quote of Antiochos I. about the so called "Elephant battle" 275 B.C. where he defeated the Galatai who invaded his kingdom.
Quote: "I´m ashamed that we owe our rescue to sixteen animals."
This shows us that this battle was won by the elephants, if the Seleucids haven´t been able to bring elephants on the field,
they would have lost the battle. Whether this is completly true or not is hard to say.
Maybe this is one of the few battles of the ancient world where elephants at least added few positive effects in the course of a battle.
I made a little list of battles and events and will add my personal comments on these with regard to the role of the war elephants.
Let´s start with the Battle of Gaugamela 331 B.C.
Dareios III. of Persia was able to field some war elephants against Alexander the Great, but it showed no effect, he wasn´t able to win the battle.
326 B.C - the Battle of the Hydaspes - where Alexander the Great fought against the Indian king Poros.
It seems like Poros had vast numbers of war elephants, but Alexander was still able to win the battle with only few casualties.
Apparently the Macedons were very impressed by these elephants so they added them to their war inventory,
just like the Diadochi empires of the Seleucids, the Ptolemaics and so on.
In the "Battle of Paraitacene" in 317 B.C. between Eumenes and Antigonos I. both sides have elephants in their ranks,
but the historic account of Diodorus is ridiculous. It is not logic, we can barely follow the battle.
Both armies position their elephants on the flanks mixed with cavalry and light infantry, both sides position elephants in front of their phalangites in the centre.
We don´t hear something about the elephants in the centre again, on the flanks the elephants just follow the cavalry but don´t join the fight.
The crossing of the Alps by Hannibal and his elephants in order to invade Italy is very famous.
Unfortunately most of his elephants died during the crossing and after his arrival in Italy he had only few left which died aswell very shortly later.
Later at the "Battle of Zama" 202 B.C. Hannibal used about 40 elephants and positions them again in front of his infantry in the centre.
The elephants attack the Romans who form gaps in their ranks for the elephants - the animals run into these gaps and get neutralised.
In the "Battle of Magnesia" 190/189 B.C. the Seleucid elephants simply get shot or chased off by Roman long range weapons.
While the elephants run away they also kill a lot of their own infantry, on the flanks the Roman cavalry finishs off the battle.
In the majority of cases elephants had no effect, very often they harmed their own troops.
Furthermore the historic accounts about battles which are interesting for this matter are very legendary and imaginative.
We can´t really gain some evidence from these accounts which is a bad thing.
There are a couple of successful battles where elephants at least didn´t harm their own troops:
"The Elephant Battle" where Antiochos I. defeated the Galatai, the Carthaginian "Mercenary War",
the "Battle of Cynoscephalae" (we hear explicitly that the elephants hit the enemy unprepared, the Macedonian phalanx wasn´t fully deployed already),
and the "Batttle of the Trebia" where Hannibal uses his remaining Elephants.
I don´t give the few elephants the credit for the victory there, it was the skilled general with his art of deception.
It is quite astonishing that a lot of ancient states used elephants in battle, although it seems like they were very ineffective,
if you look on all the battles rationally.
There must have been an effective purpose of deploying war elephants we simply don´t understand today.
I refuse to believe that the Seleucids and so on used elephants for such a long time although they were most of the time harmful for their owners.
It is a difficult question, increased by the bad historic accounts.
Today we can´t follow them because elephants don´t get used in war anymore.
I hope you learned something new and i hope you like the diorama aswell.
See you again, your Hamilkar Barkas!