BOOK VIIT. V. ii-i;, 



Elephants always travel in a herd ; the oldest its intei- 

 leads the column and the next oldest brings up the m^uilense 

 rear. When going to ford a river they put the andaf/ectim. 

 smallest in fiont, so that the bottom may not be 

 worn away by the tread of the hxrger ones, thus 

 increasing the depth of the water. Antipater states 

 that two elephants employed for miHtary purposes 

 by King Antiochus were known to tlie pubUc even 

 by name *, indeed they know their own names. It is 

 a fact that Cato, although he has removed the 

 names of mihtary commanders from his Annals, 

 has recorded that the elephant in the Carthaginian 

 army that was the bravest in battle was called the 

 Syrian, and that it had one broken tusk. When 

 Antiochus was trying to ford a river his elephant 

 Ajax refused, though on other occasions it always 

 led the hne ; thereupon Antiochus issucd an 

 announcement that the elephant that crossed should 

 have the leading place and he rewarded Patroclus, 

 who made the venture, with the gift of silver harness, 

 an elephant's greatest dehght, and with every other 

 mark of leadership. The one disgraced preferred 

 death by starvation to humihation ; for the elephant 

 has a remarkable sense of shame, and whcn defeated 

 shrinks from the voice of its conqueror, and offers him 

 earth and foHage." Owing to their modesty , elephants 

 never mate except in secret, the male at the age of 

 five and the female at ten ; and mating takes place 

 for two years, on five days, so it is said, of each year 

 and not more ; and on the sixth day they give 

 themselves a shower-bath in a river, not i*eturning 

 to the herd before. Adultery is unknown among 

 them, or any of the fighting for females that is so 

 disasti-ous to the other animals — though not because 



