134 ELEPHANTS 



brought 2 1 7 elephants in his army against 73 employed by 

 Ptolemy, at what was called "the Battle of the Elephants." 

 The battle commenced by the charging head to head of 

 the opposing elephants and the discharge of arrows, spears 

 and stones by the men in the towers on their backs. 



An interesting question has been raised as to whether 

 the elephants used by the Carthaginians were the African 

 species or the Indian. There is no doubt that the ele- 

 phants of Pyrrhus and those known to Alexander were 

 the Indian, though they were taken in those days much to 

 the West of India, namely, in Mesopotamia, and it would 

 not have been difficult for the Cathaginians to convey 

 Indian elephants, which had certainly been brought as far 

 as Egypt, along the Mediterranean coast. An unfounded 

 prejudice as to the want of docility of the African elephant 

 has favoured the notion that the Carthaginians used the 

 Indian elephant. As a matter of fact, no one in modern 

 times has tried to train the African elephant, except here 

 and there in a zoological garden. Probably the Indian 

 " mahout," or elephant trainer could, if he were put to it, 

 do as much with an African as he does with an Indian 

 elephant. It would be an interesting experiment. In the 

 next place, there is decisive evidence that it was the African 

 elephant which the Carthaginians used, since we have a 

 Carthaginian coin (Fig. 12) on which is beautifully repre- 

 sented in unmistakable modelling the African elephant, 

 with his large triangular cape-like ears and his sloping 

 forehead. In the time of Hannibal there were stables for 

 over 300 of these elephants at Carthage, and he took fifty 

 with him to the South of France with his army for the 

 Italian invasion. He only got thirty-seven safely over the 

 Rhone, and all but a dozen or so died in the terrible passage 

 of the Alps. After the battle of Trebia he had only eight 

 left, and when he had crossed the Apennines there was only 

 one still alive, On this Hannibal himself rode. 



