elephants in ancient greece

Elephant corps did not have everything their own way, of course. The Indian elephant god Ganesha, the Lord of Hosts, belongs to the retinue of Shiva. Alexander’s posthumous portraiture was first devised under Ptolemy in Egypt and subsequently imitated by Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ceraunus. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University and Michigan State University and University of Missouri. Bibliography The trunk appears to curl as if in prayer in a manner resembling an upright cobra (uraeus). Elephants in Hellenistic History & Art. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Incidentally, Indra, like Zeus and even Alexander the Great, wields the thunderbolt. This helped work the beasts into a rage. Submitted by Branko van Oppen, published on 20 May 2019 under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Detail of a 6th Century CE Elephant Mosaicby Carole Raddato (CC BY-NC-SA). Roman Mosaic Showing the Transport of an Elephant, Detail of Roman Sarcophagus with an Elephant, Detail of a 6th Century CE Elephant Mosaic. Allegedly, Antiochus’ 16 elephants instilled panic among the Galatians, causing great carnage and producing victory in battle. As the ancient historian Ammianus Marcellinus put it, "the human mind can conceive nothing more terrible than their noise and huge bodies" (Anglim, 132). Diodorus related that Indian elephants were outfitted to strike terror in warfare against the invading Assyrian queen Semiramis. In this slideshow, you'll follow the slow, majestic progress of elephant evolution over 60 million years, starting with the pig-sized Phosphatherium and ending … The armies of the Antigonids and Ptolemies also fielded Asian elephants, although generally in much smaller numbers. Starting with the association with Alexander’s Indian triumph, the exuvia (elephant’s scalp) might best be understood as an attribute of an Indian deity, such as Indra, Shiva, or Krishna. Indra, the sky god, who wields thunder and lightning, might be compared with Zeus. u (“elephant”) (compare Tahaggart Tamahaq êlu, Tamasheq alu) or Egyptian ꜣbw (“elephant; ivory”). Upon their return to Persia (c. 325 BCE), some 200 elephants are mentioned which had arrived via Arachosia and Carmania. This beast lies by the papyrus, reed and sedge, it strikes the river to pour water in its mouth and does not fear the flood. Still, their symbolic importance for Carthage is expressed on a series of Hannibal’s coinage, which depict a cloaked rider with a goad in his hand, but no turret. According to Plutarch, 475 elephants took part in the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE during the Successor Wars. It was the first time that the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula had ever seen elephants. Even later authors could be quoted to confirm that in classical Greek and Latin literature, elephants belong to the same order of fierce and frightful fabulous monsters as the martichora, unicorn, griffon, sphinx, dragon, and hippocamp. Age of Discovery ancient Greeks Ancient Indians ancient Middle animals Archaeologists Archaeologists believe Asia Assyrians axles Bactrian camel began boats bridges builders built camels cargo carry carved chariots China compass construction cultures developed distances dugout canoes early Earth Egypt elephants engineers feet fifth century b.c. “Behold the wild beasts around you,” God spoke to Job and continued describing a fearsome and mighty monster, literally a Behemoth (lit. He, therefore, embodies aspects of both Heracles and Dionysus, and Alexander was also believed to be descended from Dionysus, through Deianira, the wife of Heracles. The iconography includes Bactrian kings wearing the elephant scalp as headdress as well as Hindu deities accompanied by an elephant. If the elephant were wounded then all hell might break lose as, unpredictable at the best of times, wounded elephants could literally go mad and cause tremendous damage to both sides. 6:34.). The latter is now almost extinct and only found in the Gambia; it was smaller than the, at the time unknown, African elephant of central and southern Africa (Loxodonta africana), which explains why ancient writers all claimed the Indian elephant was larger than the African. So impressed was Alexander with the war elephants of Porus, who was said to have had a corps of 200 when he fought the Battle of Hydaspes in 326 BCE, that he formed his own ceremonial elephant corps. "An Egyptian Interpretation of Alexander’s Elephant Headdress. License. Sure, everyone is familiar with the North American Mastodon and the Woolly Mammoth—but how much do you know about the ancestral pachyderms of the Mesozoic Era, some of which predated modern elephants by tens of millions of years? The encounter was one of the largest pitch battles of the Hellenistic period, and supposedly the only ancient battle in which African elephants fought Indian. Therefore, the claim that the ancients set fire to pigs in order to cause panic among enemy elephants does seem to have an element of plausibility, although it should be pointed out that, despite Nossov’s claim (2008, p. 25), it is uncertain that the Romans themselves actually used fire. This association might be compared with the aegis, which served the apotropaic function of warding off evil forces and was itself connected with divine protection and military defense. 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