2025/04/10 by Thomas Trautmann · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Ancient Near East History #Classical Antiquity Studies #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0010417525000027
openalex publication_date 2025/04/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract Most scholars hold a skeptical view of the war elephant of ancient India. I show that the skepticism of present-day historians derives from ancient Rome, at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire, when the Romans, having defeated the elephant-deploying powers of the Hellenistic period, ended the use of war elephants in its growing empire for all time. Late Roman war elephant skepticism was taken up by Quintus Curtius Rufus, who embraced it and strengthened it rhetorically in speeches he devised and put into Alexander’s mouth, in his history of Alexander. In this way Roman skepticism about the value of the Indian war elephant was attributed to Alexander, two centuries previous to its formation among the Romans. In modern times the late Roman view that elephants have a tendency to panic and become a greater danger to their own side was turned into a settled truth about elephant physiology, but it does not accord with the evidence offered.