Elephants in Greece?

[Cambyses]

Do not compare dealing inside mediterranean and dealing with distant countries.If u want,u can load african elefants in Leptis Magna and after two weeks unload them in Ostia.Do same thing betwen Epeiros and Baktria:).I dont simply care how much elefants Nero have and also its pointless in this case,because they are from africa,same common stuff as lions or lion furs.Rome in his times have infrastructure for this and it was deal inside one state..Roman Empire.But Epeiros must deal with end of known world and foreign powers.For example Nero need say: 200 elefants or there will 200 dead animal traders and he have his elefant,no big deal.Also betwen Nero times and Pyrhoss times are 300 years difference and world change.

heh, I dont really deny any of your points about the ease of transportation within one mediterranean empire or the difference in the world of the two ages. However, we certainly dont know that Nero's elephants were African. The tradition of using elephants in that manner was unusual in Africa outside of Carthage. It is much more typical in the east. An elephant would need to be trained from birth to be any use in such circumstances and not try to fight its mahut. So, just grabbing a bunch of wild elephants off the African svelte would not work, they would need to be doemesticated and IMO the more likely place of origin for large numbers of working elephants would be the east. We can speculate all we want on this point, but ultimately we cannot know. Wild elephants were only good for the Colosseum.

In war, elephants also needed to be highly trained to be effective.

In my opinion modern students of history tend to underestimate the abilities of ancient civilizations because of the perceived scientific deficit between us and them. In this case it is perhaps best to look at the south-east asian societies that still use elephants in their construction and logging industries to understand what would or would not be possible - or more or less likely. For example its clear that an elephant responds best to one personal handler - that will likely stay with it for life. A practice that both ancient and modern societies are said to have in common.

Im not trying to suggest that elephant transportation was "normal" or commonplace, but it would not have been exceptional in times when good transportation routes existed between the mediterranean and the east. In Pyrrhus's time such good transportation routes were in place across the seleucid empire. A territory that we all know extended from near the borders if India to the Mediterranean - and i refer you to your earlier point at how much easier it is to move goods - of any kind - within the borders of a single empire.

Anyway, all Im trying to say is that it was infinitely possible and conceivable that given sufficent money, co-operation from the seleucids and political will that elephants could have made the journey to Greece.

(Emphasis added). Why?

Because surely the Carthaginians knew of Alexander, his conquests and his legacy. Their own "mother" city was initimately caught up in the whole process. Leaving aside the fact that the balance of power was shifted right across the whole Mediterannean. Even if somehow they had missed that, the province of Baktria was well known and respected within the Achaemenid Empire previously, of which again Tyre had been a part. And all this within the lifetime of the fathers and grandfathers of the influential Carthaginians in 272BC.

But most of all they were a major trading hub. They didnt need to make regular trips to places to know they existed, just see and handle the goods, and meet their merchants halfway.

Why would you think that they wouldnt know about the place? They were not isolationists or xenophobes.