A new Hellenistic war elephant

[Duncan Head]

David Karunanithy has kindly pointed me to the article at https://www.academia.edu/31097300/E._Lambrothanassi_A._Touloumtzidou_A_Terracotta_Figurine_of_a_War_Elephant_and_Other_Finds_from_a_Grave_at_Thessaloniki_Journal_of_Hellenistic_Pottery_and_Material_Culture_1_2016_69-111

In a grave apparently dating to the early part of the reign of Antigonos Gonatas (277-239) is an interesting, though damaged, terracotta model of a towered war elephant. It has some surviving paint, and shields on the tower - unusually, oval Gallic shields on the sides and a Macedonian shield on the rear of the tower. No armour. There are horizontal lines round the legs, which the authors interpret as skin folds, but I wonder if they could possibly be the banded armour of the Myrina elephants (as discussed in http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=2614.0 ).

[evilgong]

The lad was buried with a model elephant and three D6, he obviously died doing 6th edition morale tests.

David F Brown

[Duncan Head]

Somehow I'd completely missed the dice - skim-reading looking for the elephant, probably. But you're right, he was obviously a wargamer!

[Patrick Waterson]

The elephant looks to me as if it is wearing armour or at least a textile housing (a bit too much slack for just skin, methinks).  As Duncan notes, it has what the authors term a 'turret' (sic) with shields characteristically outside and one can just about discern on the left hind leg the characteristic bands which were the subject of recent discussion.

There are horizontal lines round the legs, which the authors interpret as skin folds, but I wonder if they could possibly be the banded armour of the Myrina elephants (as discussed in http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=2614.0 ).

Exactly my thoughts when first seeing the picture: they look too regular to be skin folds.  The front left leg has what appears to be a scale pattern repeated on the front half or third of the (assumed) housing, if this is not just my imagination.  The rear leg is, by contrast, distinctly banded.

There may incidentally be good reasons for the deployment of shields outside the tower.  In the strong sunlight of the Near East, the reflection or refraction from a good well-polished bronze (or bronze-faced) shield can be as good as a flare or searchlight for dazzling opponents trying to get a shot at the crew.  They also provide additional protection for the lower part of the tower, e.g. against pikes seeking to do a 'Stamford bridge' on the tower occupants.  The second reason would explain the use of different shields: they have to cover differing widths of lower tower.

[Imperial Dave]

There may incidentally be good reasons for the deployment of shields outside the tower.  In the strong sunlight of the Near East, the reflection or refraction from a good well-polished bronze (or bronze-faced) shield can be as good as a flare or searchlight for dazzling opponents trying to get a shot at the crew.  They also provide additional protection for the lower part of the tower, e.g. against pikes seeking to do a 'Stamford bridge' on the tower occupants.  The second reason would explain the use of different shields: they have to cover differing widths of lower tower.

additionally, and hopefully not coming across as pedantically, are the shields put there owned by the crew and they hang them there because there is no room to use them in the tower. The closest analogy I can think of is tanks having various spares/tools and the like hanging off the outside as there is no room on the inside...?

[Patrick Waterson]

Methinks the best place to hang them would be around the parapet of the tower, because then they are accessible if needed, not to mention adding a bit of protection in situ.  Attaching them to the lower part of the tower suggests they are probably more along the lines of spare track links serving as spaced armour, given that to retrieve them someone would have to expose himself leaning out uncomfortably far into a potentially hostile environment.

[Erpingham]

Though to follow Dave's analogy, the kit on the outside of a WWII tank was not stuff one needed to access during a battle.  So, if the crew needed shields for dismounted action, they wouldn't need to be accessible easily when they are at their action station.

[Imperial Dave]

hopefully not reading into the depiction too much but is the presence of an oval shield maybe indicative of at least one of the crew being a peltast/thureophorus/javelin type person whereas the round (presumably small diameter) shield is for a pikeman (or archer)

[Andreas Johansson]

hopefully not reading into the depiction too much but is the presence of an oval shield maybe indicative of at least one of the crew being a peltast/thureophorus/javelin type person whereas the round (presumably small diameter) shield is for a pikeman (or archer)

A thought that did occur to me was, might the "foreign" Celtic shields be trophies? A way of saying "we beat your buddies"? (Or, directed to fellow civilized types, "we beat the scary barbarians, think how dangerous we must be!")

[Imperial Dave]

hopefully not reading into the depiction too much but is the presence of an oval shield maybe indicative of at least one of the crew being a peltast/thureophorus/javelin type person whereas the round (presumably small diameter) shield is for a pikeman (or archer)

A thought that did occur to me was, might the "foreign" Celtic shields be trophies? A way of saying "we beat your buddies"? (Or, directed to fellow civilized types, "we beat the scary barbarians, think how dangerous we must be!")

not a bad shout Andreas and an interesting one. I am inclined to go with the original line of thinking BUT your comments are intriguing as I hadnt thought of that

[Duncan Head]

We know that Gonatas gained a great deal of prestige for his victories over the Galatians, but also hired them; so either is possible.

If the shields do relate to non-Galatian thyreophoroi  - which no doubt we shall never be able to prove - they would be one of the earliest bits of evidence for Hellenistic adoption of the shield-type.

[Imperial Dave]

quick query relating to elephant tower troops....do we know if they were specifically recruited for this or a proportion of certain troops just picked before a battle to 'mount up'?

[Jim Webster]

Can you see the recruiting poster

Keen young men wanted for the elephant corps

Must be handy with a shovel

[Duncan Head]

AFAIK we have no firm information. Makes sense that they'd be permanently assigned; but at the period this terracotta was made, we think that towers were a new thing, so the first generation of tower-men could have been told off at short notice.

[DougM]

AFAIK we have no firm information. Makes sense that they'd be permanently assigned; but at the period this terracotta was made, we think that towers were a new thing, so the first generation of tower-men could have been told off at short notice.

Almost certainly permanently assigned, it would have been the job of several men to equip, mount towers and so on. You would need to know your elephant to go to when the alarm was called, and how to fight from a tower. It also makes sense that they might help the driver with some of the tasks required to manage fodder etc. (Though perhaps real soldiers left that to slaves and servants).

I've also been told by people working with elephants that they can take a sudden, seemingly irrational and abiding dislike to strangers - which would be inconvenient for a random assignment.