The Ancients - War Elephants

Episode Date: August 16, 2020

Move over Hannibal. More over Carthage. This podcast is all about a much BIGGER elephant power in antiquity. A power that, at its height, stretched from modern day Bulgaria to the Hindu Kush: the Seleucid Empire. Existing for almost 250 years, throughout this Empire’s long history the Indian elephant remained right at its heart. On the battlefield these giant beasts of war became symbolic of Seleucid warfare, fighting in almost all (if not all) the major military encounters the Seleucids had with other powers: from Ipsus to Magnesia. But away from the battlefield too, these animals retained their importance, particularly for the Seleucid Kings.The history of Seleucid elephant warfare is fascinating and it was a great pleasure to be joined by Dr Silvannen Gerrard to talk through this topic. Silvannen explained how these elephants were trained and used in war, but she also stressed their importance away from the battlefield - their prestige value, the logistics of looking after elephants and how they epitomised a vital trade link with ancient India. She also answered the all important question: did the Ancients send elephants into battle drunk?Oh, and make sure you listen RIGHT to the end!A few notes:Eumenes, Antigonus, Ptolemy and Seleucus were all prominent players fighting after Alexander the Great’s death.Ptolemy was the founder of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Kingdom, centred in Egypt.Sarrisas were very long pikes – roughly 6 metres long.The Galatians: a conglomeration of Gallic tribes that settled in modern day central Anatolia.We (I mainly) go back and forth between 'Seleucid' and 'Seleukid'. Same kingdom!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Today's podcast is all about the war elephant in antiquity. But we're not in this podcast going to be focusing on their use by the Carthaginians,

who might have immediately thought of Hannibal and his famous crossing of the Alps with these beasts. No, we're going to be going further east to the Hellenistic kingdoms that emerged in the aftermath of Alexander the Great's death. And in particular, we're going to be focusing on the huge kingdom that stretched at its height from the borders of ancient India all the way through to western Turkey and modern-day Bulgaria. This was the Seleucid or the Seleucid Empire and one of its most famous military units was its Indian war elephants. And joining me to talk about the use of war elephants by the Seleucids, their use in battle, but also the prestige they symbolised for the Seleucid kings, joining me is Dr Silvanan Gerard. Silvanan is an expert on Seleucid mounted warfare and it was fantastic to have her on the show to chat all things war elephants. Here's Silvanan is an expert on Seleucid mounted warfare, and it was fantastic to have her on the show to chat all things war elephants.

Here's Silvanan. Silvanan, it is great to have you on the show. Thanks for having me. Now, this is an amazing topic, war elephants, in particular, Hellenistic war elephants. Because when we think of war elephants in antiquity, I know I do, we might think of Hannibal and his elephants straight away and the crossing of the Alps. But the Carthaginians, they're not the only Mediterranean power to use these beasts in war. We see them also used by the Greeks in the East. Yeah, and this is what makes them really,

really striking, because you just don't think of them when you think of Greek warfare. If someone says Greek warfare to you, you're likely to think of hoplites and phalanxes and that's totally understandable. And if you think of elephants at all, as you said, you're going to think of Hannibal and the Carthaginians. But these are not the only army using elephants in this period. In fact, this period is known for every army using elephants. So they're used by the Greeks, they're used by the Macedonians, the Seleucids, the Ptolemies, even the Romans. And that's quite interesting because the scholarship likes to say, oh, the Romans, they never really used elephants.

They kind of think they're terrible. And it's like, that's not the case. In the Macedonian wars, they are using elephants. The Macedonians are terrified of their elephants. So it's something that everyone is using at this period. So it's really, really interesting to study and why are they using them? Wow, Romans as well. But let's focus on the Greeks and Hellenistic Greeks first of all. When does the Greek world first encounter the war elephant? I mean, the Greeks know of elephants for quite a while. So you've got the writings of Ctesias

and Aristotle. So they tell us about elephants and Ctesias lived at the Persian court. So you've got the writings of Ctesias and Aristotle. So they tell us about elephants and Ctesias lived at the Persian court. So he saw the Persian elephants. But in a military context, the first sort of encounter with the elephants is Alexander the Great. So they're first met potentially at the Battle of Galgamela when Alexander fights all of Darius's troops. of Galgamela when Alexander fights all of Darius's troops. Arian mentions that there are some elephants in the Persian army and they were supposed to be at the front of the army. Whether they were is another matter entirely because they disappear completely from that battle account and then reappear when Alexander captures the baggage at the end of the battle. So no one really knows what they're doing in that battle, whether they do anything at all in that battle. But this is sort of their first major

encounter. And then Alexander's given some more elephants by Abiliti, he's one of the satraps, when he gets the Susa. And then obviously as Alexander moves towards India we start to see a lot more of the elephants. Different rulers are giving him elephants as he passes by, usually as a sort of sign of surrender. And so he's amassing these elephants. He doesn't really do anything with them but he's quite interested in them. And then when we get to the Battle of the Hydaspes with Porus, this is the first time the Macedonians actually have to fight elephants. So Porus allegedly has about 200 elephants and they're all integrated as part of his army at the front. They look really impressive. I think it's Quintus Cursus tells us

they look like a city wall. So they've got men in between them and it's just a really, really impressive display. This is the first time Alexander has to actually fight elephants and it's a very, very hard battle for Alexander. It's the one he loses the most men in and also because horses won't approach elephants if they're not trained to do so so he has to come up with a new way of how he's going to charge with his cavalry because Alexander is a cavalry commander. Cavalry is very important to him. So it definitely leaves a very lasting impact on the Macedonians after that. When they mutiny and decide they're not going any further in India, we've had enough, we want to go home,

one of the potential reasons is they learn that the next kingdom has even more elephants and they really don't want to have to fight more elephants again. And Quintus Cursus has this bit in where Alexander says, oh don don't worry about elephants. They're terrible. I've never used them because I think they're useless. And scholars like to pounce on that and go, well, Alexander thinks elephants are useless. No, no, no. Alexander's trying to convince his men that elephants aren't any good. And then Alexander takes his elephants back to Babylon. And as soon as he dies, there's this massive scramble among his generals to get his elephants and to get more

elephants. And that's when we start to see elephants being used in Hellenistic armies. So although they've only had a few brief interactions with elephants under Alexander and during his campaigns, they clearly left a very long lasting impact on the psychology of the Greek soldiers. You mentioned it just there. And when you were talking about the clash of the Greek soldiers. You mentioned it just there. And when you were talking about the clash of the Hydaspes in Alexander and India and facing these elephants in battle, does that really emphasise the psychological impact of facing war elephants for a culture that hasn't faced elephants on the battlefield before? Yeah, I mean, the psychological aspect of elephant warfare is a really, really important aspect.

Elephants are very, very big, they look very, very impressive. Even today if you see an elephant, elephants are still very impressive. If you imagine that you've never seen an elephant before, you've never seen anything like an elephant before, and you suddenly see this, you're going to be like, what on earth is this? It looks weird, it's very big, it makes a lot of noise and you're not just seeing it, all of a sudden it is charging towards you. That's pretty scary and there are plenty of instances throughout the Hellenistic period of armies that have never seen elephants before being quite

terrified by that. The most notable example is the so-called elephant victory where Antiochus I of the Seleucid empire fights some invading Galatians who have invaded Asia Minor and he only has a few elephants with him but we're told that the Galatians and their horses have never seen elephants and they're so confused by the appearance of them that they just turn and run before the army gets anywhere close to fighting. It's like we're not having anything to do with this, no that's, really scary. And there are accounts of just cavalry scaring even seasoned troops, so a charge of horses being terrifying, even for people who know how to stand against cavalry. So if you imagine an elephant charging at you, elephants are much, much bigger, and whilst a horse isn't going to attempt to kill you, a horse won't stand on you if it can avoid it. Elephants don't care. They will trample you or

pick you up in their trunks and dash you to the ground and things. So the psychological element really shouldn't be dismissed when we talk about elephants and elephants in warfare. Lovely. I mean, I think there's a fascinating example of the brutality of elephants in the immediate aftermath of Alexander's death in Babylon. mutineers to the elephants and let the elephants trample them. And again, this shows the ferocity of elephants and also just that sort of psychological impact. Even if you just hear of that, you go, okay, these are very terrifying beasts. I don't want anything to do with these. So at around this time, then, at around the death of Alexander the Great, you mentioned that they've had these few encounters with elephants before. But when do we start to see the Macedonians incorporating elephants into their own armies? That comes with the end of Alexander's period. So he's starting to put them in his army. Whether

he's going to actually integrate them in his army is another matter because he doesn't live very long after he gets to Babylon. So we don't really know what he was planning to do. There are some sources that say he had them positioned around his tent because they look very impressive and on the funeral cortege of Alexander's body it's got different elements of his army painted on it and the elephants are there so people said look he did intend to actually incorporate them but it's after once we get the success of wars that we start to see elephants becoming integral features of the army. So everyone very quickly wants some elephants and if you don't have any elephants you have to think, how am I going to combat these elephants? And some scholars

have described it as almost like an arms race where they're very, very keen to get these elephants and we do quickly see that any successor who wants to be successful has elephants at this point. Of these successes and winning this arms race with elephants as it were is the importance of war elephants most visible with the Seleucids? The Seleucids are definitely important when it comes to elephants because they go on to have the most elephants because their kingdom their empire is next to India and India is where they're getting a have the most elephants because their kingdom, their empire is next to India and India is where they're getting a lot of their elephants from. At the beginning of the Successor Wars Seleucus doesn't really have much to go with because he gets this raw deal of he is given the

governorship of Babylon but very quickly is ousted from Babylon and then has to retake it with only like 200 men. So at first he doesn't have very many and it's Antigonus and Eumenes who have the real numbers of elephants where they've got the majority of Alexander's elephants and those from Porus and they're the big players. But as we move towards the end of the fourth century Seleucus is off campaigning in the east. We don't really know what happened but it's recorded, Strabo records that he makes this deal and this treaty with one of the Indian rulers and he supposedly gets 500 war elephants. Now the validity of that figure is debated but either way he gets a lot of war elephants and these he brings with him to the battle of Ipsus which is sort of like a turning point in the wars of the successors. And from that once the Seleucid

Empire becomes a crystallised sort of entity they have the vast majority of elephants over all of their adversaries. The Ptolemies later start to conduct elephant hunts down the Red Sea into Ethiopia and that sort of region to get African elephants but they cannot command the same numbers that the Seleucids command. Pretty much all the time the Seleucids are going to outnumber their opponents in elephants. Fascinating and I do realise I did go quite quickly into the Seleucids there because that Bastavipsis and that campaign is saying so crucial to this topic. If you could give us a bit of background into who were the Seleucids and how powerful was Seleucus just before the

Basil of Ipsus at the end of the fourth century? Right, so Seleucus was one of Alexander's commanders. I think he's in charge of the Hypaspes at one point. So he's an important general in Alexander's army and he is included in the discussions among the successors of who is going to control what bit and as I said he gets Babylon. So it's not a huge bit, he's not getting the big positions of like region of the whole area but he gets an important place and he's quite well liked in Babylon but Antigonus Monothalmos, he's the only real successor who aims at conquering all of Alexander's empire. He quickly ousts Seleucus from Babylon and Seleucus goes and

takes refuge with Ptolemy. And the sources tell us he's only got about 200 or 300 cavalry when he attempts to retake Babylon. And obviously he chooses his moment well, he chooses a time when Antigonus and Demetrius are not there and he quickly retakes Babylon and the Babylonians are quite happy about that, they like Seleucus and he cements his position there and then he goes off campaigning in the east and our sources for this period are far more interested in the west and all the fights that are going on so we don't hear much about Seleucus then. Once he comes back, the battle of Ipsus, so this is all the other major contenders have sort of allied against Antigonus. They realise Antigonus is a kind of threat. So you've got Lysimachus who's up in Thrace, you've got Ptolemy and Cassander and Seleucus and they all ally

together to fight Antigonus at the Battle of Ipsus. Ptolemy doesn't actually fight at the Battle of Ipsus but he's supposed to be allied to them anyway. So Seleucus brings a force. It's not a huge force. Most of the force there is probably Lysimachus's but he does bring a lot of cavalry which he's recruited in the east and a lot of elephants. I think it's usually interpreted as he brings them all the elephants that Lysimachus and the allies have at this battle. After the allies win this battle and Antigonus is killed, he then gets hold of all of all his eastern conquests from Babylon towards the east and some of Asia Minor as well, which Antigonus held. And this sort of crystallizes the Seleucid Empire. So the Seleucid Empire is one of the major Hellenistic kingdoms during the

Hellenistic period, along with the Macedonians and the Ptolemies in Egypt. So they're really, really important players in the Hellenistic period. And how many elephants are we talking about does Seleucus have at the Battle of Ipsus? Well, Diodorus, who is very, very fragmentary for this battle, which is a real shame because at this point he's basing it off the contemporary source of Hieronymus of Cardia, who was at the battle. I'm not entirely sure who says what number, but he and Plutarch say either 400 or 480. Now, it's usually believed that those stem from that original 500 and that there might be some that have died along the way or are not suitable for battle but we're talking a lot of elephants now as i said scholars have debated how many elephants did Seleucus really have i mean

that's a considerable number of war elephants and Tarn in his famous article said well we can't trust the number 500 because this is a very stereotyped number in Indian sources to mean a great many it just means a lot and he gives lots of examples like there's this king and he's got 500 concubines riding 500 elephants and there are 500 rivers and you get the idea that this is sort of a stereotype thing it it means a lot of elephants. And that, so far, I'm quite happy to accept that. He then later says that, oh, he actually only had 150 and 130 at the Battle of Ipsus, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, now you've lost me, that doesn't make much sense. He bases that number because when Antiochus III, who's the latest Luther King, when he goes to

India, he gets enough elephants to make it up to 150. And he says, well, he liked to emulate Seleucus, so clearly he's... Seleucus only had 150. I'm like, no, that doesn't work. And if you actually look at the tactics of the Battle of Ipsus, to pull off what they do, they need a lot of elephants. 150 would not be enough. pull off what they do, they need a lot of elephants. 150 would not be enough. So I would say we're probably looking in the range of between 200 and 500, somewhere like that. It's a lot of elephants. And so what are the tactics used at Ipsus with the elephants? Ipsus is a very, very important battle for the elephant. Even critics of the war elephant would say this is their greatest success. So it's a very complex battle

because what the allies do is something called combined arms warfare where each different contingent is intended to work with the others so that you compensate for any weaknesses and you enhance the skills of each contingent. So at the beginning of the battle Demetrius who is Antigonus' son charges the Seleucid cavalry and causes them to retreat away from the battle, Demetrius, who is Antigonus' son, charges the Seleucid cavalry and causes them to retreat away from the battle, and Demetrius pursues them away from the battle, which is great. You think, yay, the Antigonids are winning, but that very crucially exposes the flank of the Antigonid phalanx, because the cavalry are there to protect it. So you have Seleucus and Lysimachus very quickly

exploit that exposed wing with their horse archers and with some of their light troops. On the other side of the battle, their elephants are fighting against Antigonus's elephants, and Diodorus tells us that this battle is a very fierce one. They fight as if nature had matched them equally. So that kind of suggests it's sort of a stalemate. In the meantime, Demetrius realises, I actually probably better get back to the battlefield and help. And he tries to return, but Seleucus has flung the rest of the elephants in the way. He's blocked off Demetrius's return. So there's this massive wall of elephants now facing Demetrius's cavalry and stopping him getting to the battlefield. And that's very, very important because that means that Seleucus and Lysimachus can harass the Antigonid phalanx as much as they like. And there's a passage in Plutarch's biography of

Demetrius where Antigonus keeps hoping Demetrius is going to turn up and he never does. And then he falls under this cloud of javelins as the Seleucids and Lysimachus move in for the final blow. So the elephants have played a really crucial role in blocking off Demetrius's cavalry and it's then been argued, well did Demetrius then really defeat the Seleucid cavalry or did they deliberately draw him away from the battlefield so that Seleucus could move the elephants across? I mean that depends on how you want to read it, but I would argue it seems deliberate because moving that number of elephants, and we're talking, the sources usually say about 300 elephants at this point, moving that many elephants in the middle of a battle without

disrupting your own army takes a lot of planning. So I would say that this is all deliberate. It's all intended to create that gap on the side of the Antigonid line. It's very interesting how you mentioned this is the high tide of elephant warfare in the Hellenistic period. And this battle occurs barely 20 years after Alexander the Great's death. Yeah, so this battle is in 301 BC, and the Hellenistic period continues for centuries after that. It's generally considered as their greatest military success, and it is truly a spectacular success for the elephants. I like to argue it's not their only success. They are useful throughout the rest of the Hellenistic period as well. I mean,

a lot of the scholarship says elephants are great when no one's seen them because they're big and scary and everyone's terrified of them and no one really knows what to do. But once you get used to them, you've learned how to combat them, then they become a liability because elephants can be scared into attacking their own troops and there are several battles where elephants just trample their own army and it's a disaster. And so they're like, elephants aren't that great. And it's like, well, if that is the case, why are they used for over 150 years? So I would argue that there are other uses of elephants. They are still very important

militarily, even after Ipsus. Ipsus is a great triumph, yes, but it's not the only important battle where elephants are used. Absolutely. And we'll definitely get on to that. Just one more thing on this battle and this campaign, because it is so fascinating as a case study for understanding elephants and Hellenistic warfare. And what I find so fascinating, what you were saying there, is the distances involved. So Seleucus, he's got these elephants from India. Yeah. And this battle is being fought in modern day Turkey. Yeah. So he's had to transport his

elephants all the way across the Middle East. And he has generally pacified the area. So he doesn't have to necessarily worry about being attacked, though there are still some areas that are a bit iffy. But just the logistics involved in getting that many elephants across. Now elephants aren't too bad at traveling they can travel about three miles an hour and can usually average about 15-20 miles a day so that's not too bad. We know that Alexander with his whole army usually averaged about 15 miles a day. I mean obviously smaller contingents can move a lot faster and Alexander is noted for his speed. So elephants aren't too terrible. You can move them across. We know that in one case Antigonus made the spectacular nearly 300 mile trip in seven days with elephants. So we know you can get the elephants to move very fast. I mean, it did kill quite a lot of the elephants, but it is doable. And Seleucus gets his elephants about 305 BC. This battle's 301, so he's got

several years to get there. The problem is, is just transporting elephants on campaign is, how on earth do you carry enough fodder to be able to feed your elephants? And feeding elephants is almost a logistical nightmare because they need a lot, a lot of food. They produce a lot of waste as well, so you're going to need a very good logistical system to deal with that. But there are other instances of getting elephants across the Middle East as well. We hear when Antiochus wants to go and fight the Galatians, a fragment of the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries records a passage where they very hurriedly send Bactria for 20 elephants and very quickly get elephants across the Seleucid empire. So they must have had some way of doing it

but yeah, we can imagine the logistics were quite insane. I definitely want to get onto logistics. As you mentioned there, it sounds absolutely insane insane in itself not just the military use of things but going back to Seleucus quickly following the Battle of Ipsus how important does the elephant become for his kingship? Elephants are very important for Seleucid kingship eventually they become almost emblematic of the Seleucid kingship, eventually they become almost emblematic of the Seleucid empire. They're sort of a symbol of the Seleucid empire. And we know that Seleucus is very keen to emphasize the role his elephants played because there's lots of coins minted following this battle. It's got Athena in like a triumphant chariot that is being pulled by elephants. So this is his way of signalling the victory at Ipsos. He really wants to shout that from the rooftops and the elephant, as I said, quickly becomes the symbol of the Seleucid Empire and elephants and kingship is something I'm very interested in. How far elephants signify

kingship. They're these really big animals, they look very impressive and also you need a lot of money to be able to keep elephants, so it's a good way of just showing off your wealth. So elephants are very, very important for Seleucus, and Strabo tells us that he keeps them at Apamea with the rest of his military headquarters. So he's very, very keen on keeping his elephants and showing off his elephants. They are very important for the Seleucid Empire. Is that a key reason, the prestige factor, why I'm guessing the elephants become key elements of Seleucid warfare and reach their height, as it were, in the third century BC?

Yeah, so I'm very interested in, as I said, that prestige element. And yes, of course, the elephant does have very important military roles to play and they are an integrated part of their army. That's something scholarship tends not to consider. So there's a lot of books on elephants but they don't tend to consider how they work with the army itself. They just consider the elephant on its own. But also another reason why they're used and continue to be used has got to be this prestige element that this is a world where everything is very unstable. Everyone is fighting against each other for the right to be the ruler of a particular area. And you're going to want to emphasize anything that shows off your kingly magnificence. And elephants are very, very good at that. so they have kingly associations in India they very quickly

have kingly and divine associations in the Mediterranean world as well these are the biggest land animal naturally they're associated with the guy at the top of the political pyramid he is the king he has the biggest stuff it looks really impressive and we see these used in ceremonial things all over the place so even Ptolemy he mints coins with Alexander in a chariot being pulled by elephants um we get elephant headdress coins so it's Alexander wearing an elephant scalp again showing that sort of magnificence and also you know know, an elephant's head is huge. You can't wear that as a piece of headwear. So it shows that, well, he's like a god because he's superhuman. So again, we get that connection. And even the Romans later take this up where you see coins, I think Tiberius mints a coin with Augustus, the divine Augustus being conveyed

in a chariot with elephants so the prestige elements are very important very pervasive throughout the Hellenistic world and even later into the Roman world. I guess that brings on to the question of how did they look after these elephants I mean did they have enclosures? This is something that I would love to know more about. I mean, so Strabo tells us that Seleucus keeps, or allegedly keeps, his 500 elephants at Apamea. And we know that this is where they also keep the royal, or one of the royal horse studs. So there's a lot of horses there. We know it's where they keep the war office and where the royal guard are likely to be. So we assume that there are some sort of pastures, maybe some sort of enclosures as far as I'm aware archaeologically no one has ever found the things for that which is a real

shame I would love there to be elephant stables that would just be amazing so we're not entirely sure how they kept them there it's also likely they had other places where they would keep them so Bactria seems an area where they'd keep them. We know when Antiochus III goes to Bactria and fights the king when Bactria has become independent he has elephants and he quickly gets elephants from him. But how they're keeping them, the logistics of that is something that is a lot more obscure because of the nature of the evidence so we sort of have to compare it to some Indian things and

think how might they do it. We know that they did have Indian elephant drivers, so the Mahouts. So they were interested in importing men who knew how to deal with these elephants. And this happens even in Carthage, the drivers are called Indian. So at least initially we assume that this means they imported people from India who knew how to handle elephants. Whether that means they're always Indian after that or whether the title gets attached to the job. So if you look after elephants that you're just assumed to be Indian whether you are or not, that's another matter entirely. But that's about as much as we know about how elephants are kept i'd love to

know more but there aren't many sources on this unfortunately the sources don't think this is important and you mentioned just their bacteria sorry just whereabouts is bacteria in the ancient world so bacteria it's um on the edge of india so we're probably talking like modern day afghanistan it's sort of that border region so it's the very edge of the Seleuc modern day Afghanistan it's sort of that border region so it's the very edge of the Seleucid empire and it's sort of the bordering of northern India or at least what is ancient India so bordering India obviously has quite a close connection so could be a place as you say for housing elephants because of well geographically geographically, its proximity to India, but is it also quite a fertile land as well? Yeah, so Bactria is notable for being quite fertile

and it has lots of grazing opportunities. So Bactria also have an amazing cavalry and really good cavalry pastures and that sort of thing. So it's quite understandable that you could potentially keep elephants there. And that's why the city does so well, the Greek city, Bactria does so well, because it's such a fertile area surrounded by areas that are not as fertile. So that's, I think, definitely an important factor.

Fascinating. And during the third century, following Seleucus, sorry, I keep mixing between the two. We'll keep with Seleucus now so people don't get confused. During the third century, do we see elephants from India continue to be imported into the Seleucid Empire? Or do we know about that? And as you mentioned earlier, do we also see their drivers being imported as well? Yes, it's assumed that on the whole,

the Seleucids are getting their elephants from India. It's possible they try to breed some of the elephants, but breeding elephants in captivity is something that's very, very difficult to do. Even modern zoos have issues breeding elephants. It's not something that's easy. So if you're going to maintain a war elephant force, this is not the best way to go about it. Also because elephants are not suitable really for warfare until about 15. So that's a lot of money you've got to spend feeding this baby elephant that isn't going to do very much for you until a bit later.

So armies, even Indian armies, prefer to get adult elephants because then you don't have to worry about what on earth you do with it until it's old enough to actually fight. So we assume that they would get their elephants from India. We know that when Antiochus III goes to India he renews the friendly relations the Seleucids have with the Mauryan court and he gets elephants there just as Seleucus got elephants and we know that the Seleucids sent ambassadors to that court so it's quite reasonable to assume that there are friendly relations here and that's one of the reasons why we think the Seleucids stopped using their elephants is that when the Parthian empire expands and cuts off the Seleucids from India it's now a lot harder to get your elephants. There is no way you can get the elephants from. And that's one of the

reasons the Ptolemies have to look into getting African elephants is because the Seleucid Empire, who are their enemies a lot of the time, are in the way. They're not gonna let you just walk through to India to get some elephants. It's like, we'd rather have those. So other armies have to start looking elsewhere to get their elephants as well but as i said the drivers at least initially seem to be indian that's what our sources tell us that these men are indian as i said how far they're always indian afterwards is a bit more debate and we know i think the ptolemies and carthaginians are quite keen for their own men to learn how to deal with these animals. But that's a little more obscure in the sources.

And with the Seleucids being in the way, especially with the Ptolemies, is that why the Seleucids become the dominant Hellenistic power that uses Indian war elephants? Yeah, because they just have access where the other kingdoms don't. The Macedonians and the Greeks, once the original contingent of Alexander's elephants and the early elephants are gone, they don't really have elephants anymore. And that's why they're so terrified of the Romans' elephants almost a century later. It's like, oh my god, what are these? We don't have these anymore. And yeah, so the Seleucids can get Indian war elephants very, well, I'm not going to say very easily, it's still probably a challenge, but

a lot easier than the other kingdoms. And this is where we start to see different types of elephant being used. So the Seleucids can get Asian elephants because they can go to India. Once the Ptolemies have to go down the Red Sea to Ethiopia to get African elephants, we get different types of elephants being used. And this culminates in the Battle of Raphia, 217 BC, where this is the first major battle you have African elephants versus Indian elephants. And Polybius' account describes how these two elephants clash. And he has this really famous passage where he says, Ptolemy's elephants are terrified, they don't do much, they retreat because they're afraid of the bigger Indian elephants. And everyone went, hang on,

African elephants are bigger than Indian elephants, what is Polybius on about? And a lot of people originally said, oh, Polybius is wrong then, he's got this wrong, and they were quite critical. A little bit after that, Gowers wrote an article saying, actually, Polybius is correct. When we say African elephants, they don't mean the big African elephant from the savannah that we know as the big African elephant, they mean the forest elephants of North Africa. And these are much smaller than Indian elephants, so it's understandable that they perhaps are scared of the bigger elephants. And for a long time it was assumed that the Ptolemies used forest elephants. These are certainly the elephants that the Carthaginians are using and the Romans are later using. However, again, this has recently been challenged by a

scientific study that says it might be possible that looking at the genetic patterns of ancient elephant remains in Ethiopia, that the Ptolemies elephants were in fact the big African elephants. And then again, this questions what is Polybius talking about then? And does Polybius know this? Or does he just assume, oh, African elephants, they're the small ones. And that's what's going on. So there's lots of different elephants as well that are used in the Hellenistic world. It's not just the Indian ones. And that creates a whole range of complications. And you think, oh, okay, that's just a necessity of location. We're in Africa, we have to get African ones. But it does have important military aspects

as well. Like the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC have some of the African forest elephants in their army, but they keep them at the back because the Seleucids have Indian elephants and they know there's no way our elephants are going to fight those Indian elephants so they just keep them at the back and go we're not dealing with that. So that's an important dimension of elephant warfare as well. And does it also emphasize how these elephants had to be trained before they would have gone into a battle? Yes, so the elephant is a very peaceful animal generally. It's not a domesticated animal. It's obviously a wild animal. And they're also intelligent animals. And there are plenty of ancient sources praising the intelligence of elephants. So normally these animals are not

going to go anywhere near a battlefield. They're not stupid. That's when you get hurt. That's not a good idea. So you do have to intensively train your elephants to be able to cope with the battlefield, in the same way you have to train a horse to be able to deal with the battlefield. So you can't just get some wild elephants and take them to the battlefield and hope that they're going to work. And that's why sometimes elephants can panic and trample your own men because they're wild animals, they get very easily easily frightened they're not meant to be on the battlefield so that's again important aspects of how they're used and we know that if you want to use cavalry with elephants you're going to have to train both of those to work together because horses don't like elephants

if they've never seen them before they're not going anywhere near them so you have to extensively train those animals to work together as well so the training is definitely an important aspect and when we get to climactic clashes like raffia in the late third century bc can we see differences in the elephant's armor in the equipment is it still one man riding on of the elephant into battle or has this evolved somehow? Yes so originally like when Alexander is fighting Porus the elephants are going to be relatively simple. You'll have a guy who's driving the elephant and then a few people sat on the back maybe with bows or spears, some kind of missile weapon and they're just sat on the back so they're not in these giant towers

that you see in a lot of modern reconstructions. Those come in a lot later so when Pyrrhus invades southern Italy with his elephants this is when we think the towers, the howders, start to appear because there's a dish from Capino, it's got an elephant on it and a tower on the top and these towers then can house a number of men the actual number is debated but four maybe up to 15 but people argue over how much an elephant can carry um several soldiers on the back and they will have bows spears sometimes sarissa because if you're going to fight an enemy elephant contingent with also men on the back if you've both got sarissas you can poke each other with them and this is what Polybius tells us at the Battle of Raphia that both the Ptolemaic elephants

and the Seleucid elephants have towers and the men are fighting each other on the top as the elephants clash together. When we get to the Carthaginian elephants, these are the smaller African elephants, so Charles in particular has questioned whether these elephants are big enough to carry towers and he says that we don't actually hear of any of the Carthaginian elephants having towers, we don't see it in any art. So that's a hotly debated issue of whether they're carrying any but on the whole when we talk about the big clashes with the Seleucids yes eventually they have big towers lots of men on the back they sometimes have like headdresses on the

top of the elephant as well so that's going to increase the height and the appearance I don't know how far the Greeks and the Macedonians themselves used it but I think in India they used to attach swords to the tusks of the elephants as well and other types of like spikes. So you really want your elephants to look big and scary as well as the fact that just their trunk can pick you up and hit you on the ground. Once again those decorative headdresses, even on battlefields, it sounds like there's a prestige value in them. Yeah. Again, so much of this is showing off your military might to your enemy and trying to intimidate them. If you can intimidate them into not wanting to fight you, or they're not so sure about fighting you, then that's really going to help you win

that battle. Or like with the Galatians, if you can intimidate them so they run away before the battle even starts that's definitely a bonus so it's all about heightening that appearance and we shouldn't dismiss those kind of elements when we talk about warfare they're still very important and commanders want to show off look how powerful my army is look how many different things I have so that's certainly an important element of the battlefield. Indeed, win-win, win-win. And let's talk about enraging an elephant. If, say, before the battle you want to send this elephant in, you want to send in a berserk elephant, did the Seleucids, did they have any method of riding up the elephants for a battle? This is something we don't hear too much about. There is a later battle, the Battle of Bethsechariah. This is against the Hasmonean Jews. So it's in 162 BC. Now, I will just preface

this by saying we don't really know what happened in this battle. So we have several different accounts. Two books of the Maccabees tell us about this battle and we've got two different accounts in Josephus. So he's a later Roman writer, he's Jewish and he's writing in Greek but he lives in the Roman period and he writes Antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish Wars. So he's very interested in this and we get different accounts. His Antiquities of the Jews account follows the account of the first book of the Maccabees and some scholars would say that this author of the Maccabees was actually at this battle. Whether he was or not we can't really tell. The problem is with his account is that it is very partisan. It

really wants to emphasise the heroicism of the Jews. It wants to say look at these brave men who stood and fought against this foe. There's lots of biblical parallels, so the David and Goliath parallel is very, very strong in this account. Just like one man stood against one big terrifying foe, look at these handful of Jews who stood against this mighty Seleucid empire, and they, hell, they've got elephants. This is terrifying. So these accounts are very partisan. We don't really know what was going on in this battle, but they tell us that they gave the elephant the juice of grapes. Now we assume that this is some kind of alcoholic sort of like wine, so that that potentially is riling up the elephant

and there are a few other authors who say that they also give them this either mulberry juice or grape juice, again we're assuming it's alcoholic, to rile up the elephants. At the same time you're going to want to be careful how far you rile up an elephant because they can very easily trample your own army as I've said so how far they made consistent use of that is debatable and we don't have any other sources that are a bit more reliable that tell us yes this is what they do before a battle so it's a debated question so a debated question but they could have used alcohol to get some inebriated indian war elephants yes well going on to then seems like a good way to go on to the diet of a war elephant of the

Seleucid Empire. Do we have any idea of what these elephants would have been fed? This is a question lots of people like to ask me when I talk about elephants, like, what do elephants eat? How do you feed an elephant? And unfortunately, as you probably can guess, our sources don't tell us. They're not interested in this. So we have to sort of assume that you're going to feed them lots of grain lots of fruit the sort of things you would probably feed an elephant today I mean elephants need a lot of food in the wild they spend about 16 hours a day searching for food so if you have them in captivity and they can't do that you're going to need to feed them quite a lot but as for

what they fed them we're not actually told and I'm not a zoologist so I can't say oh this is definitely what elephants eat I would assume it's sort of similar to what we feed elephants today but I'm not entirely sure okay fair enough fair enough so it sounds like you have these enclosures in these major Seleucid centres. This idea of the prestige value, do you think we would have seen at the royal courts of the Seleucid kings, maybe in, well, maybe not the courtyards, but in ancient parks, as it were? Do you think there would have been these exotic animals such as elephants roaming the parks to emphasise the might and the wealth of these rulers? That's certainly possible. We know that the Persians at least had royal parks where they'd keep lots of different animals. I'd be careful with the word exotic because it's debatable how

far they're considered exotic in a world that has regular contact with them. But this is where they'd keep all their animals, their wild animals, the different animals. And we don't see any reason why the Seleucids wouldn't have kept that sort of thing. And yeah, you're going to want to show them off. As I said, Alexander had them allegedly in front of his tent because hell, they look impressive. We know the Seleucids kept up the Achaemenid tradition of a moving court so it it doesn't stay in one place at one time so that as to whether they're always showing off their elephants will probably depend where they are at any particular time but it's usually assumed that there's going to be some elephants at Babylon there was potentially some at Antioch there was

definitely some at Apamea. So I would assume that when they're there, yes, we show off our elephants because they're very important, but we don't hear of many elephants elsewhere. Of course, fair enough. I love this idea of an ancient safari park, but I don't want to say that word too much because it's obviously quite a modern word and applying it to the ancients is not always correct yeah i guess we've got to go on to the decline when do we start to see the decline of indian war elephants being used in the hellenistic east right so this is something scholarship is quite interested in they say like sabin says oh this era is known for the rise and fall of the elephant and a lot of scholars say once their sort of psychological impacts worn off

they're not that great. Now I disagree and say well actually they're useful for a lot of different things and not least the prestige element but they do start to fall out of use so the Ptolemies stop using elephants eventually, the Carthaginians, once Rome has sacked them, don't use elephants. Rome makes a point of saying no more elephants. You're not allowed any more elephants. So I would like to point at that and say well if the Romans think they're terrible why are they so adamant that the Carthaginians can't have any more? The Romans used their elephants but not that extensively. They only used them for a little bit. The Seleucids are the ones who use them the most and the most consistently. And even when they're defeated by the Romans and you get the

Treaty of Apamea and the Romans say to them, no more elephants, we don't want any more elephants. The Seleucids aren't that bothered about that. They still have elephants. So the Treaty of Apamea is 188 BC. At 165 Antiochus IV has this giant parade and there are elephants. And it's like, look, I have elephants, I don't care what Rome says. And then we get the Battle of Bethzechariah, again there are elephants. After that the Cilicers have annoyed Rome a bit too much and Rome sends a man called Octavius to slaughter the elephants at Apamea. And he does. The people of Apamea are notavius to slaughter the elephants at Apamea and he does. The people of Apamea are not happy with that because the elephants make a lot of noise when this is

happening and they kill the guy slaughtering the elephants because it's like, nope, we're not happy with that. That's not okay. And people say, okay, that's the end of the Seleucids using elephants, but actually, again, there's another fragment of the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries that tells us that during sort of the Seleucid Civil Wars, as the empire is becoming very unstable, Demetrius and Alexander Ballas both have elephants and they both fight each other in an engagement. We don't know anything else because that's all it tells us, but we know that they did have elephants. So again, this is something that they still have even in 150 BC but once we get the Parthians and the Parthians invade Media so this is in the middle like western Iran and cut off the Seleucids from India I would say that's when the use of elephants starts to die

off a bit because they just have no way of getting to India. We know the Parthians afterwards, when they take over most of the Middle East, are not interested in elephants. We don't hear of them again until we get the Sassanids, who are the successors of the Parthians, and they do revive the elephants again. So it sounds quite like the Ptolemies, how the Ptolemies were unable to access the elephants

because the Seleucids were in the way, and now the Seleucids are unable to access the elephants from India because these new powers are in the way. Yeah, exactly. In regard to that, when we were talking about the Battle of Ipsus earlier, and how this is such a crucial battle in the rise of the Seleucid Empire, and the important use of elephants at it, do you think that is a key reason why the later Seleucid rulers still use elephants is it this link possibly to their success at Ipsus to the forging of the Seleucid empire and the key role that the elephants played in that is that also a key reason why they're such prestigious animals in the Seleucid empire I think that's definitely going to play an element in it and very quickly you get Seleucus

and then Antiochus forging sort of the myths and the legends of the Seleucid empire, the foundation myths. And as I said, you get the coins showing Ipsus and the battle and the elephants. So very quickly they're becoming a very important symbol of what it is to be a Seleucid king. So I think that's definitely going to play an important role as to why you keep them that, well, your father had them and his father had them and they're just a natural part of the Seleucid empire. Of course you have them and they look impressive. That said, they also have important military aspects like you're in a world of very limited asymmetry and warfare. Everyone's

got the same kind of army, the same kind of tactical mindsets that if your opponents have elephants you're going to need them too because the easiest way to counter an elephant is with another elephant so again that ties into the arms race thing of you have to keep them because either your opponents have them or it gives you the edge over your opponents at the same time they're also useful for other things just blocking units so they have other military uses as well as the prestige value so i think the two go hand in hand but yes i think ipsus is a very important thing for solidifying for a lot of the hellenistic world this is why you need elephants this is why they're great and this is why they signify like this military success i absolutely love what you

mentioned there earlier at how it is possible elephants were still being used in saluted armies down to the mid second century bc yeah they're used a lot longer than i think some of the scholarship is willing to admit and they're used in near enough every saluted battle that we have records for there are a few where they're not and it tends to be because the battle's unusual or the terrain isn't suitable but in every near enough every major battle of the Seleucid army they have elephants. They're a consistent feature of the army so I get a bit irritated when scholarship saying oh they're useless they're just novelties it's like no these rulers took these elephants seriously they're an

important part of their army so we have to understand that to final question to wrap it all up you mentioned that the Parthians don't really use elephants but of course the Hellenistic influence on the east remains particularly the Seleucid heartlands when it gets taken over by other cultures do we think those remnants of the Seleucid influence of Seleucid culture contributes to the revival of using elephants in what is now the Middle East and the Near East in late antiquity? So this is something that is moving out of my area of expertise, but I would assume yes, and the fact that again, it's that connection with India. So once you can have relationships with India again and there isn't another enemy power in the way, they are still using elephants. They use elephants right

up until the recent mechanization of warfare. So you're going to see that and then if you think, oh well those are pretty cool, those are pretty terrifying, I want some of those. I would say that's again going to add to this element and why you want to use them and if there's still legends and history of the rulers of this area once did use elephants I think that possibly is going to tie into why you think you want them as well but again I don't know much about the later periods so I can't say for sure of course quite understand Sylvanan anyhow that was absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Congratulations on your recently becoming a doctor too. Thank you. And once again, an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. As I mentioned at the start, we always think of Hannibal and all that, but actually the Seleucids are the people we should perhaps most commonly associate with elephant warfare in antiquity. Yeah, I mean, the Carthaginians are kind of using them because they've seen what the Ptolemies are doing. Oh, that's cool. We want some of those. And everyone thinks, oh, it's the Carthaginians using elephants.

Actually, no, the Seleucids are the bigger elephant power. So that's interesting. So it's actually the Seleucids and the Hellenistic East that influences the likes of Hannibal and the Carthaginians using elephants. Yeah, that's probably more likely where they're getting their inspiration for using them from. There we go. I'll probably put that in at the end of the podcast as a little bit extra because that is another really interesting fact. Forget Hannibal, think Antiochus, think Seleucus. Brilliant. Once again, that was absolutely lovely.