with their horns. But the greater part of the beasts that belonged to Ptolemy declined the combat. For this usually happens to the elephants of Afric, which are not able to support either the smell or cry of the Indian elephants. Or rather, perhaps, they are struck with terror at the view of their enormous size and strength; since even before they approach near together they frequently turn their backs and fly: and this it was which at this time happened. As soon, therefore, as these animals, being thus disordered by their fears, had fallen against the ranks of their own army, and forced the royal guards to break the line, Antiochus, seizing the occasion, and advancing round on the outside of the elephants, charged the cavalry which was commanded by Polycrates in the extremity of the left wing of Ptolemy. At the same time, also, the Grecian mercenaries, who stood within the elephants near the phalanx, advanced with fury against the peltastæ and routed them with little difficulty, because their ranks likewise were already broken by the elephants. Thus the whole left wing of the army of Ptolemy was defeated and forced to fly*."

Nearly a century and a half afterwards we find a successor of Antiochus employing elephants of war in his battles with the Jews. The reader is familiar with the singular passage in the book of Maccabees, which describes the mode in which the animal was used in battle; but we transcribe it, as completing the picture of elephant tactics, which gave a new character to the wars of Asia after the conquest of India :— "To the end they might provoke the elephants to fight they shewed them the blood of grapes and mulberries. Moreover they divided the beasts among the armies, and for every elephant they appointed a thousand men, armed with coats of mail, * Polybius (Hampton's Translation), book v. chap. viii.

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and with helmets of brass on their heads; and besides this, for every beast were ordained five hundred horsemen of the best. These were ready at every occasion: wheresoever the beast was, and whithersoever the beast went, they went also, neither departed they from him. And upon the beasts were there strong towers of wood, which covered every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there were also upon every one thirty-two strong men, that fought upon him, beside the Indian that ruled him."

The same history presents an example of courage and self-devotion, which shews how much the ele phant was an object of dread, and at the same time how little his real power could avail against human heroism:- "Eleazar also, surnamed Savaran, perceiving that one of the beasts, armed with royal harness, was higher than all the rest, and supposing that the King was upon him, put himself in jeopardy, to the end he might deliver his people, and get himn a perpetual name; wherefore he ran upon him courageously through the midst of the battle, slaying on the right hand and on the left, so that they were divided from him on both sides. Which done, he crept under the elephant, and thrust him under, and slew him: whereupon the elephant fell down upon him, and there he died*."

It would be tedious further to follow the scattered notices of the employment of the elephant in war in the various monarchies that succeeded the empire of Alexander. We have already seen that they were abundantly used in Syria; and it is to be remarked that the founder of the dynasty which so long governed Upper Asia, Seleucus Nicator, attached so much importance to this species of force, that he gave an entire province on the borders of the Indus in exchange for five hundred of the elephants of San

* Maccabees, book i. chap. vi.

drocottus*, which he kept at Apamea, in Syria t. But, after the lapse of two centuries, as Syria and other kingdoms of the East became tributary to Rome, the use of the animal in their armies was either forbidden or discouraged. Almost the last record which we find of the elephant in Syria is a coin struck in honour of Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes Dionysius, who was raised to the throne of that kingdom in the 225th year of the era of the Seleucidæ (B. c. 87), which represents the quadruped bearing a torch, according to the custom of the Syrian monarchs, with the horn of plenty behind him.

*Strabo, lib. xv. p. 724. Casaub. The Latin translation of Strabo has, through some mistake, "L" as a translation of TvTanorious. Cuvier has copied the error, (Ossemens Fossiles, tom, i. p. 76.) It was these five hundred elephants that Seleucus placed at Apamea, for Strabo says, "Seleucus Nicator placed there the five hundred elephants," &c.

Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 752.

EMPLOYMENT OF ELEPHANTS IN WAR AND IN TRIUMPHS BY THE CARTHAGINIANS AND ROMANS.

ABOUT half a century after the death of Alexander the elephant was first seen in Italy. In the battle of Heraclea (B. c. 280), Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, employed twenty Indian elephants against the Romans. They had towers upon their backs full of bowmen; and Pyrrhus is described to have been indebted for his victory to the terror which the first sight of the elephants inspired *. The King of Epirus, indeed, appears to have greatly relied upon the impressions to be produced by this new danger; but he had to contend with a people little accustomed to be shaken by vague apprehensions. When Fabricius *Florus, lib. i. cap. 18.

went to Epirus to negociate an exchange of prisoners with Pyrrhus, the King on one day offered him gold, which he refused; and on another, during their conference, caused an elephant to be suddenly produced, hoping to wrest from the fears of the Roman general those concessions which he could not obtain by his bribes. The honest and undaunted warrior with a smile said, "Neither your gold yesterday nor your beast to-day has made any impression upon me*." Within four years after the battle of Heraclea the elephants of Pyrrhus had ceased to be formidable. Curius Dentatus commanded his soldiers to attack them with burning torches in one hand and their swords in the other. An accident, too, completed the effect of this well-conceived plan. A young elephant having been wounded, made a fearful roaring, and his mother rushing through the field to his succour, and being followed by others, threw the troops of Pyrrhus into complete disordert. Four of the captured elephants were led in triumph to Rome, where they were called Lucanian oxen, probably because they were first seen by the Romans in Lucania. At the siege of Argos, Pyrrhus was equally unfortunate in the employment of this quadruped. In the rush of his army into the town, the gates were too low to admit the turretted elephants, and the animals crowding back carried disorder into the ranks of the assailants. Plutarch, who mentions this circumstance, relates a romantic tale of the *Plutarch; "Pyrrhus." + Eutropius, lib. ii.

Pliny, lib. viii. cap. 6. The elephant was very generally called the Lucanian ox by the Roman writers. The etymology of the E'xipas of the Greeks is involved in some obscurity. Thomas Hyde, an Englishman well skilled in the oriental languages, states that the animal is called by the Arabs phil, by the Persians pil, by the Syrians philo, and by the Spaniards alfil; that the phil of the Arabs became Δελφίνος in Coptic-whence Ελφιν-Ελεφαν, Ελέφας. The Jews of the middle age called elephants' teeth shen-de-phin, i. e. shen-de-phil.-See Cuper de Elephantis, p. 103.