148 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



to be a dim tradition of a long-lost continent in the Atlantic 

 Ocean actually existent in time long past, relates that among 

 the animals to be found there were many elephants, and 

 adds that the elephant was the " largest and most voracious " 

 of all creatures. There is a bare possibility that this Greek 

 philosopher may have seen one or more of these animals 

 during his sojourn in Egypt, whither he journeyed in the 

 pursuit of his philosophical studies. That elephants were 

 not quite unfamiliar objects to the Egyptians at a very much 

 earlier period is testified to by the inscriptions. The inde- 

 fatigable traveller and close observer, Herodotus, writing 

 about a century before Plato's time, notes (Lib. IV, cap. 191) 

 the presence of elephants in a region to the westward of 

 Egypt. Thus we see that at least the more educated among 

 the Greeks could scarcely have been ignorant of their exist- 

 ence, although since the disappearance of the extinct species 

 none of these animals trod the soil of Europe before that 

 Alexander the Great perhaps sent as a gift to his master 

 Aristotle. This, at least, is the conclusion forced upon us 

 by a study of the written records. 



Wonderful tales are told of the immense number of war 

 elephants used in ancient times in India, and the great 

 Hindu epic, the "Mahabharata," leads the way by giving as 

 the component parts of an ideal army, 109,500 infantry, 

 65,610 cavalry, 21,870 chariots, and 21,870 elephants; cer- 

 tainly a very efiicient commissariat would be required to 

 supply nourishment for a like assemblage of these huge 

 pachyderms. Apart, however, from such poetic exaggera- 

 tions, the sober statements of Greek and Roman historians 

 and geographers are remarkable enough. Thus Strabo* 

 (first century B. C.) asserts that the Seres had 5,000 ele- 

 phants in their service, and Plutarch (ca. 46-120 A. D.)t 



*Lib. XV, cap. 1. 



tVita Alexandris, cap. 62. 



