Single bone in Spain offers first direct evidence of Hannibal's war elephants
phys.org78 points by Archelaos 5 days ago
78 points by Archelaos 5 days ago
Something often left out of fiction about war is how easily a moving army can overwhelm a local ecosystem, particularly if its supply lines sag. You might not even be their target, and yet you will be pillaged. No more easy hunting for you for years. No more quick trips for firewood, or tinder.
It stands to reason that if an occupying force doesn’t stay long in an area, and its animals die along the way, that the now destitute locals will take the “road kill” and scrounge every possible calorie from it. And marrow was a dish rather than something for soup stock up until the modern era. The Illiad basically won’t shut up about it.
So I have no doubt that every dead elephant anyone could find was 100% rendered down into food and leather by the beleaguered locals. And probably every cousin from one village over got told about the find too. (I suspect elephant leather would make amazing peasant shoes)
> Something often left out of fiction about war is how easily a moving army can overwhelm a local ecosystem, particularly if its supply lines sag. You might not even be their target, and yet you will be pillaged. No more easy hunting for you for years. No more quick trips for firewood, or tinder.
This is also why so many soldiers ended up dead outside of battle, and not from getting stabbed. Why Sun Tzu and Clauzewitz went on and on about logistics.
Why should the army leave a dead elephant on the road? They would butcher it themselves and take the meat with them (and the tusks). The locals may have found some large bones for their living room decorations (and may be some skin, if they were lucky).
Because they might be in a hurry to reach that mountain pass before the snow comes. Or to meet other goals set by the general and if already stocked up on supplies, it would be quite a burden to also carry an extra elephant (which was likely also carrying things before it died).
And perhaps it's not so good even if you are being "defended" by the hungry army! It kind of resembles when a monarch comes to visit a noble; you would need to spend a lot on them and their entourage.
> You might not even be their target, and yet you will be pillaged.
Isn't this how Rome was sacked way back when it was just a city among many others in the Italian peninsula? If I recall correctly, this was a wake-up call for the city to start working on protecting itself adequately.
This month I read "Carthage Must Be Destroyed" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10133950-carthage-must-b...), which dives deep into Hannibal's war against Rome (and the other punic wars).
I highly recommend reading about what happened from the Carthaginian perspective instead of the typical Roman perspective.
There's also some elaboration on the usage of elephants, the feasibility of of this, and how ultimately ineffective it was for war. (It was great for scaring the enemy, but the issue is they indiscriminately hurt both armies).
Worth noting that these would have been North African elephants, a now-extinct subspecies. It is not as tall as the modern African elephant - 2.5m at the shoulder, as compared to 3 to 3.5m for African elephants. A large warhorse might measure 1.5m tall, for comparison.
It is my understanding that Asian elephants are easier to tame by humans than African elephants, which is evident just by seeing how elephants are used in parts of Asia and how they are used (not) in Africa. Also circus elephants, when they were still common, would always be Asian elephants and not African ones. The reason I'm pointing this out is that I wonder whether the North African subspecies was more amenable to taming than still extant subspecies of the African elephant.
There are multiple species of African elephants, and the North African elephant may yet turn out to be related if not identical to one of the others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_elephant#Taxonom... The African forest elephant is of similar size, and it would be interesting if the forest elephant is indeed more easily trained.
> A large warhorse might measure 1.5m tall, for comparison.
By sadle hight not at ear top hight, right?
ears will be at 8' or above on a real tank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant
mentions hannibals last surviving elephant by name
I highly recommend "The Fall of Civilisations" podcast's episode on this topic. it's such an epic story and the narrator builds such a rich picture of the times and events.
https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/2023/04/11/%F0%9F%90%...
The Paul Cooper production is great. The Rest Is History also just finished a long series (spread out in three seasons, starting on episode 421) on the Punic wars, similarly well done.
There's also a video version of the episode on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6dbdVhVSat8
Hannibal loved it when a plan came together.
The latter years of his life must have been very disappointing
After interacting with some Asian elephants with handlers recently this makes a lot more sense. Even if he used North African elephants - they can hike up and down mountains and rough terrain easily with stability. I’m assuming they could pull equipment and even potentially be armed and armored. They are incredible creatures.
Terror Lake salutes Hannibal crossing the alps
Herodotus wrote of fire breathing ants in Egypt.
He was referring to his mother’s sisters.
Misinterpreted all the time. Very similar terms in the Greek sources.
score yet another win for the stories of antiquity being more right than wrong.
I don't think anyone doubted the story. The details might be questionable, but the basics that he tried to fight with elephants is highly likely. We have plenty of sources for War Elephants in his time, so the idea that he didn't have them would be the larger surprise if someone could prove that.
It's more like, the surviving written histories and the archaeological record are each giving us only a part of the real truth. It's as if they're both grasping in the dark at two different parts of the same elephant.