4 ms·

Alexander the Great versus the Elephants

41 points by diodorus 4y ago

petard 4y ago
Wonder how pervasive Elephants and other animals that are now endangered were at that time.
- bhaak 4y ago
  The historical distribution of lions is quite surprising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lion_distribution.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lion_distribution.png I never would have thought that lions were native to Africa north of the Sahara and even in Greece.
  - fosk 4y ago
    Romans used to call the Sahara region on maps with the phrasing "hic sunt leones" (which translated from latin literally means "here lie the lions").
    - __coaxialcabal 4y ago
      translated from latin literally means "here are (pl.) lions"
    - 1-more 4y ago
      if you scroll all the way East on the Tabula Peutengeriana (a medieval copy of an ancient Roman road map) you get to India where "in his locis elephanti nascuntur" meaning "in this place Elephants are born" and a little West of that the same thing for scorpions. Some detail pics in this blog post including the Elephants one, and you can find full size scans of it but I don't want to deep link to them because they're huge. https://digitalmapsoftheancientworld.com/ancient-maps/tabula-peutingeriana/ https://digitalmapsoftheancientworld.com/ancient-maps/tabula...
  - HarryHirsch 4y ago
    Every good classicist has heard the story why unlike every other Greek tribe the Makedonians did not erect tropaia on the battlefield. They used to, but after a major battle a lion came down from the hills, found the new scratching post, knocked it over, and left. They considered that a message from Zeus and stopped.
  - tragomaskhalos 4y ago
    Lions are mentioned in the Odyssey, implying that Greek listeners would have been familiar with them. I'd always assumed these were some sort of mountain cat, but that map suggests no, actual lions!
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    I pay attention to how old certain words are in some languages. The ones I've seen have very old words for "lion." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D5%A1%D5%BC%D5%AB%D6%82%D5%AE#Old_Armenian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D5%A1%D5%BC%D5%AB%D6%82%D5%A... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Iranian/%C4%87%C3%A1rgu%C5%A1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Ira...
  - neighbour 4y ago
    A good heuristic that I use is: >can pigs live in this environment? If yes, in most cases, lions (and probably other big cats) will thrive.
thom 4y ago
What were the decisive victories in antiquity attributable to elephants? I feel like I’ve read countless tales of them running away or rampaging amongst their own troops but relatively few of them carrying the day.
- _pastel 4y ago
  From https://acoup.blog/2019/07/26/collections-war-elephants-part-i-battle-pachyderms/ https://acoup.blog/2019/07/26/collections-war-elephants-part.... I highly recommend the whole series. > At Bagradas (255 B.C. – a rare Carthaginian victory on land in the First Punic War) [...] the elephants disorder the Roman line. In the spaces between the elephants, the Romans slipped through, but encountered a Carthaginian phalanx still in good order advancing a safe distance behind the elephants and were cut down by the infantry, while those caught in front of the elephants were encircled and routed by the Carthaginian cavalry. What the elephants accomplished was throwing out the Roman fighting formation, leaving the Roman infantry confused and vulnerable to the other arms of the Carthaginian army. [...] > Elephants could also be used as area denial weapons. One reading of the (admittedly somewhat poor) evidence suggests that this is how Pyrrhus of Epirus used his elephants – to great effect – against the Romans. It is sometimes argued that Pyrrhus essentially created an ‘articulated phalanx’ using lighter infantry and elephants to cover gaps – effectively joints – in his main heavy pike phalanx line. This allowed his phalanx – normally a relatively inflexible formation – to pivot. [...] > Thus the war elephant wasn’t a ‘battle winner’ so much as a dangerous complication thrown in the way of the enemy’s plan of attack. And at that, they were awesome.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    One of the earliest forms of combined-arms warfare, perhaps?
- accurrent 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant Lists a few. My guess is that they served more to strike fear into the hearts of ememies rather than actually being effective.
adictator 4y ago
[dead]
stevenfoster 4y ago
If this kind of thing is of interest to you I'd recommend reading Philip Freemans Biography of Alexander the Great. He also has solid biographies on Caesar and Hannibal (if you need more for your war elephant fix)
skybrian 4y ago
For more reading, Bret Devereaux wrote some good blog posts about war elephants: https://acoup.blog/category/collections/war-elephants/ https://acoup.blog/category/collections/war-elephants/
jdmtheNth 4y ago
No-one wants to talk about the flaming war-pigs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pig
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

41 points by diodorus 4y ago

petard 4y ago

Wonder how pervasive Elephants and other animals that are now endangered were at that time.

bhaak 4y ago
The historical distribution of lions is quite surprising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lion_distribution.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lion_distribution.png I never would have thought that lions were native to Africa north of the Sahara and even in Greece.
- fosk 4y ago
  Romans used to call the Sahara region on maps with the phrasing "hic sunt leones" (which translated from latin literally means "here lie the lions").
  - __coaxialcabal 4y ago
    translated from latin literally means "here are (pl.) lions"
  - 1-more 4y ago
    if you scroll all the way East on the Tabula Peutengeriana (a medieval copy of an ancient Roman road map) you get to India where "in his locis elephanti nascuntur" meaning "in this place Elephants are born" and a little West of that the same thing for scorpions. Some detail pics in this blog post including the Elephants one, and you can find full size scans of it but I don't want to deep link to them because they're huge. https://digitalmapsoftheancientworld.com/ancient-maps/tabula-peutingeriana/ https://digitalmapsoftheancientworld.com/ancient-maps/tabula...
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  Every good classicist has heard the story why unlike every other Greek tribe the Makedonians did not erect tropaia on the battlefield. They used to, but after a major battle a lion came down from the hills, found the new scratching post, knocked it over, and left. They considered that a message from Zeus and stopped.
- tragomaskhalos 4y ago
  Lions are mentioned in the Odyssey, implying that Greek listeners would have been familiar with them. I'd always assumed these were some sort of mountain cat, but that map suggests no, actual lions!
- hot_gril 4y ago
  I pay attention to how old certain words are in some languages. The ones I've seen have very old words for "lion." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D5%A1%D5%BC%D5%AB%D6%82%D5%AE#Old_Armenian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D5%A1%D5%BC%D5%AB%D6%82%D5%A... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Iranian/%C4%87%C3%A1rgu%C5%A1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Ira...
- neighbour 4y ago
  A good heuristic that I use is: >can pigs live in this environment? If yes, in most cases, lions (and probably other big cats) will thrive.

thom 4y ago

What were the decisive victories in antiquity attributable to elephants? I feel like I’ve read countless tales of them running away or rampaging amongst their own troops but relatively few of them carrying the day.

_pastel 4y ago
From https://acoup.blog/2019/07/26/collections-war-elephants-part-i-battle-pachyderms/ https://acoup.blog/2019/07/26/collections-war-elephants-part.... I highly recommend the whole series. > At Bagradas (255 B.C. – a rare Carthaginian victory on land in the First Punic War) [...] the elephants disorder the Roman line. In the spaces between the elephants, the Romans slipped through, but encountered a Carthaginian phalanx still in good order advancing a safe distance behind the elephants and were cut down by the infantry, while those caught in front of the elephants were encircled and routed by the Carthaginian cavalry. What the elephants accomplished was throwing out the Roman fighting formation, leaving the Roman infantry confused and vulnerable to the other arms of the Carthaginian army. [...] > Elephants could also be used as area denial weapons. One reading of the (admittedly somewhat poor) evidence suggests that this is how Pyrrhus of Epirus used his elephants – to great effect – against the Romans. It is sometimes argued that Pyrrhus essentially created an ‘articulated phalanx’ using lighter infantry and elephants to cover gaps – effectively joints – in his main heavy pike phalanx line. This allowed his phalanx – normally a relatively inflexible formation – to pivot. [...] > Thus the war elephant wasn’t a ‘battle winner’ so much as a dangerous complication thrown in the way of the enemy’s plan of attack. And at that, they were awesome.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  One of the earliest forms of combined-arms warfare, perhaps?
accurrent 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant Lists a few. My guess is that they served more to strike fear into the hearts of ememies rather than actually being effective.

adictator 4y ago

[dead]

stevenfoster 4y ago

If this kind of thing is of interest to you I'd recommend reading Philip Freemans Biography of Alexander the Great. He also has solid biographies on Caesar and Hannibal (if you need more for your war elephant fix)

skybrian 4y ago

For more reading, Bret Devereaux wrote some good blog posts about war elephants: https://acoup.blog/category/collections/war-elephants/ https://acoup.blog/category/collections/war-elephants/

jdmtheNth 4y ago

No-one wants to talk about the flaming war-pigs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pig

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]