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Are elephants really bothered by pigs? All the claims of pigs being successful seem to be from BC Greco-Roman historians, making them very prone to propaganda a
by boomboomsubban 4y ago
Are elephants really bothered by pigs? All the claims of pigs being successful seem to be from BC Greco-Roman historians, making them very prone to propaganda and the writers were often unwilling to divulge actual military strategy.
None of the sources seem to be Asian or African, where surely they fought far, far more elephants than the Romans. And I can't find any modern confirmation of it.
It seems like the noise could have been replicated with some kind of trumpet, and we'd have a long legacy of those being used against elephants.
- rramadass 4y agoGood point. Elephants have been used in warfare for centuries in South/South-East Asia and i can find not a single account of pigs/noise being used to rout them. Even their Elephant training manuals do not mention them. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34637079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34637079
- johngladtj 4y agoMy understanding was that it wasn't so much the pigs that scared the elephants, but the fact that they were running around on fire
- boomboomsubban 4y agoIt's supposed to be the mad squealing from them running around on fire, if it were just the fire they'd use torches and fire arrows.