ELEPHANTS how they where and should be

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

The Egyptians used the larger African Plains Elephants? When was this?

Because I have found many references to them relying on the small African Forest elephants because the Selucids cut the supply of Indian Elephants.

At Raphia the Ptolemies were described as being at an initial disadvantage with their smaller elephants compared to the Selucids.

You're right. That info is incorrect. African Plains elephants (sub-saharian elephants) were never used in warfare due to their untamable, savage nature. Ptolemaic Egyptians did use smaller North African elephants in battle, but they were no match against Indian-Asian elephants. PROMETHEUS info is wrong. Carthaginians used this precise sub-species of elephant: North African elephants. Not the African Plains elephants (sub-saharian elephants). These last ones were NEVER used in war due to their untamable nature.

Please check your sources, PROMETEUS!! I do not wish to review EVERY Historical detail in the game to see if it is reliable or not.

EDIT: Also I think we need to make elephants more vulnerable to light infantry and skirmishers than they are now. Perhaps giving them a bigger bonus vs Elephants and reducing the Elephant hitpoints.

I know the Romans used Velites against them in the Punic Wars to make them run amok, and that should be a viable counter (since the terrible flaming bacon is no longer included).

Working on it for the Alpha 0.3 release.

[sharrukin]

I have never run across a reference to any mercenary elephants in the historical record. Has anyone? They were a state institution and not for sale by mercenary companies. Unless someone has information to the contrary, they should go.

[PROMETHEUS]

Please check your sources, PROMETEUS!! I do not wish to review EVERY Historical detail in the game to see if it is reliable or not.

sorry to say this but I did check and is reliable even becouse partially is from the descriptions of ancient resources , and African Elephant the plain one is begger than the indian one , not so domasticable tough , while the forest one was more domesticable and so used .....
I think you didn't read well since It didn't say anywhere that the Ptolemys used the big Plain one , but actually the countrary.....

The major difference in the two subspecies is in the size. The average adult Bush is over eight feet at the shoulder, and the Forest is under that figure The African elephants were taken from North and East Africa. The Ptolemies of Egypt exploited this group particularly. Elephants were widespread in Syria, but the myth of a Syrian elephant as distinct from the Indian and African must be dismissed. There is no evidence of such a difference.2

Both W. W. Tarn and the editors of The Oxford Classical Dictionary purport that the common idea that the African elephant was smaller and weaker than the Indian elephant is a “thoughtless literary cliché” and offer “heavy weights recorded for Ptolemaic tusks” as conclusive evidence.”23 However, Diodorus, Pliny, and others all agree that the African elephant is inferior in size and strength. Furthermore, H. H. Scullard refutes the tusk theory emphasizing that there are actually two subspecies of African elephants: the common Bush elephant and the smaller Forest elephant. The Forest elephant was the African elephant of the ancient world. Many have surmised that the battle of Raphia, where Indian and African elephants met, demonstrated that the African is inferior because of its defeat there. However, the Indians outnumbered the Africans significantly and therefore it is unfair to cite the outcome of the battle as a valid test as to which elephant was the best fighting machine.

this is where tells anbout the Ptolemy , the info is correct yours interpretations where wrong here says that the Ptolemys used by far the african elephant referring to the forest....read it better befoure sayng the info isn't correct guys.....

The ancient sources are very clear in indicating that pigs were used to deter elephants in battle. Pliny writes “elephants are scared by the smallest squeal of a pig; and when wounded and frightened, they always give ground (VIII, 1.27).” Aelian says that “it was by these squealing pigs, they say, that the Romans turned to flight the elephants of Pyrrhus and won a glorious victory (1,38).” The most frequently told tale concerning pigs as a counter weapon to elephants may be represented by Aelian and Polyaenus: when Antigonas Gonatas was besieging Megara, the Megarians succeeded in routing the besiegers’ elephants by dousing pigs in oil and igniting them and then turning them loose against the elephants.

also why delete flaming pigs if are historically cirrect????

[The_Emperor]

Well I did not know whether the Carthaginians used African Plains Elephants or not. I have only found references to the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

But I do know that the North African Elephants were driven to exctinction by the Romans because of their extensive use in the games (to recreate the battles of Hannibal and Scipio).

I do wonder if people would like Carthage having smaller elephants compared to the Parthians and Selucids.

EDIT: Polybius describes the Battle of Raphia quite well in his histories and he explains that the Egyptian elephants were much smaller than the Selucids.

also why delete flaming pigs if are historically cirrect????

The Phyrric campaign happened before the Games timeframe, and that use of Pigs was a one-off I believe because of the situation. (wasn't it a siege?)

They were not used since that campaign in the many battles of the Punic Wars against Carthage.

[PROMETHEUS]

The most frequently told tale concerning pigs as a counter weapon to elephants may be represented by Aelian and Polyaenus: when Antigonas Gonatas was besieging Megara, the Megarians succeeded in routing the besiegers’ elephants by dousing pigs in oil and igniting them and then turning them loose against the elephants.

as u see where used more than once so this makes it a antielephant weapon in list between others may be , but on the list.....

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

I do wonder if people would like Carthage having smaller elephants compared to the Parthians and Selucids.

Carthage might have had stocks of Indian-Asian elephants, although I find it highly improbable. IMO, they should have the smaller Forest elephants.

BTW, IIRC, the Pathians NEVER used elephants of ANY kind.

EDIT: Polybius describes the Battle of Raphia quite well in his histories and he explains that the Egyptian elephants were much smaller than the Selucids.

Preciselly.

The Phyrric campaign happened before the Games timeframe, and that use of Pigs was a one-off I believe because of the situation. (wasn't it a siege?)

They were not used since that campaign in the many battles of the Punic Wars against Carthage.

Once again, agood point.

[PROMETHEUS]

About the quotes of my posts , it just states that my informations are corerect and there was a misunderstanding of what read since the african used was the smaller one....

[PROMETHEUS]

Also found this about an antielephant unit....


Anti-elephant Wagons
300 of these curious devices were, according to Dionysios of Halikarnassos, used by Rome against Pyrrhos' elephants at Asculum. They were four-wheeled ox-drawn wagons (the reconstruction is based on a relief of a solidwheeled Italian farm cart) with wattle screens to protect the crew. They were fitted with upright poles, to which were attached mobile horizontal beams which could be swung in any direction. The beams were fitted with "tridents or swordlike spikes or scythes all of iron", while some had grapnels wrapped in pitch-daubed tow. These would be set on fire and swung at the elephants' trunks and faces. In addition, the wagons were manned by archers, slingers "shooting iron caltrops" and stone-throwers.

There are two accounts of their performance in battle. Dionysios says they initially stopped the elephants' charge, but were then shot at with javelins by the elephant crews and overwhelmed by supporting light infantry, who cut through the wattle screens to get at the crew and hamstrung the oxen; the wagon crews then took flight. Zonaras however says the wagons were never engaged, because the elephants attacked at the other end of the battlefield the wagons no doubt being too clumsy to redeploy. As Asculum was a two-day battle, both stories may be correct, each referring to one day of the battle. The wagons' very existence has been doubted, as the invention of later Roman annalists; but they are described as such a dismal failure that they hardly reflect well on Rome, and serve no Roman propaganda purpose. They probably represent a real and ingenious, though ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to deal with a military problem new to Rome.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

About the quotes of my posts , it just states that my informations are corerect and there was a misunderstanding of what read since the african used was the smaller one....

Ah! OK! I didn't understood that. I tought it was a justification for including African Plains elephants. It's all ok now.

BTW, great work collating all those references...

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

sorry to say this but I did check and is reliable even becouse partially is from the descriptions of ancient resources , and African Elephant the plain one is begger than the indian one , not so domasticable tough , so the difference could be the unit go more easily on rout....

this is where tells anbout the Ptolemy , the info is correct yours interpretations where wrong here says that the Ptolemys used by far the african elephant referring to the forest....read it better befoure sayng the info isn't correct guys.....

Were does it say "by far"? I've only seen this:

The African elephants were taken from North and East Africa. The Ptolemies of Egypt exploited this group particularly.

East Africa had Forest elephants too, altough not as widespread as the African Plains elephant was in the south. So, why do you think he meant more than being thourough about a specific geographical stock of Forest elephants?

And this one just confirms what I've said before:

The Forest elephant was the African elephant of the ancient world.

Not the African Plains elephant.

But I can even add this (specially the bolded lines):

Since the publication of H. H. Scullard's The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World, his explanation of the ancient belief that the Indian elephant was larger than its African cousin, contrary to their modern counterparts, has been repeated in works within the field of classical studies (Bigwood, AJPH 114, 549; Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, 35, e.g.) and has even been adopted by a few specialists on elephants (Chadwick, The Fate of the Elephant, 32; Wylie, "Elephants as War Machines," Elephants, Shoshani ed., 147, e.g.). According to Scullard, the ancients were acquainted primarily with the smaller African sub-species, the Forest Elephant (Loxodonta africana cyclotis) and not the larger Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana africana). This explanation, although ingenious, attempts to resolve the question solely from a Graeco-Roman perspective. The question can also be answered by using ancient Indian sources on the elephant and interpreted from the Indian perspectives which emerge from them.

As Scullard himself recognizes (237), Graeco-Roman knowledge of the elephant came originally from interaction with the civilizations of northwest India. The Mauryan kings who succeeded Alexander in controlling this area had a highly organized system for the maintenance of their herds of elephants. The Arthasva¤stra (2.31-32), a treatise of government probably dating to the Mauryan period, reviews the responsibilities of the king's elephant keeper, under whom worked physicians, trainers, riders, foot-chainers, stall-guards, and other attendants. Reserves were maintained for the elephants, where the animals were allowed to live in a semi-feral state while guards observed their movements and kept careful records (2.2.6-11). These elephants were then captured as needed for military or other purposes. These practices are verified by references in the extant inscriptions of the Mauryan king Asvoka. (See Minor Rock Edict II, I-K and Fifth Pillar Edict, line I.)

As the first elephants to be used in the Mediterranean were obtained from India, it is predictable that Indian methods of organization would be adopted. A position of elephantarch was established by the successors of Alexander in their respective realms (Plutarch, Demetrius 25, e.g.), and the term ÆIndovß was appropriated to refer to elephant drivers in respect to the first Indians who trained the Greek kings' elephants (Polybius 1.40.15, e.g.). The existence of elephant reserves in the African interior, corresponding to those created by the Mauryans in India, might explain the ability of the Carthaginians to assemble an elephant corps so quickly at the end of the Second Punic War (Appian, Libyca 9). Moreover, similar accounts of the capture, diseases, and habitats of elephants are found in the Arthasva¤stra, the Ma¤tan¤ga-Lî¤la¤, the Aristotelian corpus, and later Graeco-Roman treatments of these topics.

So, it seems the Carthaginians used Indian breeding methods. Did they used Indian-Asian stock elephants too?

also why delete flaming pigs if are historically cirrect????

Because:

Altogether the pig seems to have been quite an effective weapon against the elephant, although its use does not appear to have been widespread in the ancient world.

Just like fighting Druids and Screeching Women. Casual, one-time situations, not standard by any means. No justification for including them in armies. They were casual happenings. NOT a Military UNIT by any strech of the imagination...