ELEPHANTS USED IN WAR 133 



his trunk, with its hand-like termination ; with this he can, 

 and does, experiment and builds up his individual knowledge 

 and experience. Elephants act together in the wild state, 

 aiding one another to uproot trees too large for one to deal 

 with alone. They readily understand and accept the guid- 

 ance of man, and with very small persuasion and teaching 

 execute very dextrous work such as the piling of timber. 

 If man had selected the more intelligent elephants for 

 breeding over a space of a couple of thousand years a 

 prodigy of animal intelligence would have resulted. But 

 man has never " bred " the elephant at all. 



The Greeks and Romans knew ivory first, and then 

 became acquainted with the elephant. The island of 

 Elephantina in the Nile was from the earliest times a seat 

 of trade in the ivory tusks of the African elephant, and so 

 acquired its name. Herodotus is the first to mention the 

 elephant itself; Homer only refers to the ivory by the word 

 " elephas." Aristotle in this, as in other matters, is more 

 correct than later writers. He probably received first-hand 

 information about the elephant from Alexander and some 

 of his men after their Indian expedition. The Romans 

 had an unpleasant first personal experience of elephants 

 when Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, landed a number with his 

 army and put the Roman soldiers to flight. But the 

 Romans then, and continually in after-times, showed their 

 cool heads and sound judgment in a certain contempt for 

 elephants as engines of war. They soon learned to dig 

 pits on the battlefield to entrap the great beasts, and they 

 deliberately made for the elephant's trunks, hewing them 

 through with their swords, so that the agonised and 

 maddened creatures turned round and trampled down the 

 troops of their own side. The Romans only used them 

 subsequently to terrify barbaric people, and as features in 

 military processions. But Eastern nations used them 

 extensively in war. In A.D. 217 Antiochus the Great 



