Seleucid Elephants

[Jim Webster]

My version of book two army lists gives the Seleucids an elephant free gap between 162BC and 145BC

However I've just come across a Babylonian Clay tablet which states that Demetrius 1st had 25 elephants when he marched out to death and defeat in 150BC

New evidence from the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries concerning Seleucid and Arsacid History.
By R J van der Spek

[Duncan Head]

My version of book two army lists gives the Seleucids an elephant free gap between 162BC and 145BC

The gap exists, of course, because the last appearance of Seleucid elephants in battle was supposedly in 162 in Lysias' second Judaean campaign (see here) and the elephant herd was slaughtered by Roman envoys. (The post-145 elephants are a wholly new force, Africans with Ptolemaic origins - Sekunda gives the arguments.)

Therefore the use of elephants in 150 is a little puzzling. But Gnaeus Octavius' embassy that massacred the elephants probably took place before Lysias' expedition of 162 - the embassy is usually dated to 163 (eg at Attalus) - and if so the elephants that Lysias took to Judaea in 162 were obviously not massacred the year before. About 165, Antiochus IV had divided his elephant force in two, taking some on his eastern campaign and leaving the rest with Lysias (I. Macc. 3.34). So perhaps the Romans only managed to kill the king's half of the elephant corps, if it had returned to Antioch following his death in the east, while Lysias' half survived to campaign in Judaea in 162 and later be used by Demetrius in 150.

[Dangun]

Therefore the use of elephants in 150 is a little puzzling.

I think this conclusion may be the other way around. Doesn't this just show us how weak the source for the elephant slaughter is?
I confess I don't know what the source is... but its a pretty bizarre claim to begin with.

[Jim Webster]

My gut feeling is that we're dealing with what is left of Lysias' elephant corps. If at Battle of Beth Zechariah he had thirty/thirty two, then twenty-five twelve years later doesn't sound too unreasonable.

Certainly I'd suggest that the evidence of the Babylonian clay tablet supports nicely the idea that a fair proportion of the Seleucid elephant herd missed the cull.

We don't know the relationship of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and whoever was in charge in Bactria but until about 167 it is possible he brought in more elephants. Certainly he had more elephants at the review at Daphne than Antiochus III had at Magnesia

So rather than looking at the elephants being the elderly remnants of the force Antiochus III brought back from India, it may be that their numbers had been topped up whether by imports or perhaps less likely, breeding.

[Duncan Head]

Therefore the use of elephants in 150 is a little puzzling.

I think this conclusion may be the other way around. Doesn't this just show us how weak the source for the elephant slaughter is?
I confess I don't know what the source is... but its a pretty bizarre claim to begin with.

Polybios XXXI.2.9-11:
"For they at once named as legates Gnaeus Octavius, Spurius Lucretius, and Lucius Aurelius and dispatched them to Syria to manage the affairs of that kingdom as the senate determined, there being no one likely to oppose their orders, since the king was a child and the principal people were only too glad that the government had not been put in the hands of Demetrius, as they had been almost certain it would be. Octavius and his colleagues thereupon left, with orders in the first place to burn the decked warships, next to hamstring the elephants, and by every means to cripple the royal power."

Appian, Syrian Wars 46:
"[The Senate] thought that it would be more for their advantage that Syria should be governed by an immature boy than by a full-grown man. Learning that there were many elephants in Syria and more ships than had been allowed to Antiochus in the treaty, they sent ambassadors thither, who killed the elephants and burned the ships. It was a pitiful sight, the killing of these rare and tame beasts and the burning of the ships. A certain Leptines of Laodicea was so exasperated by the sight that he stabbed Gnæus Octavius, the chief of this embassy, while he was anointing himself in the gymnasium at that place, and Lysias buried him."

Not all that weak, as ancient literary sources go.

[Jim Webster]

Therefore the use of elephants in 150 is a little puzzling.

I think this conclusion may be the other way around. Doesn't this just show us how weak the source for the elephant slaughter is?
I confess I don't know what the source is... but its a pretty bizarre claim to begin with.

Polybios XXXI.2.9-11:
"For they at once named as legates Gnaeus Octavius, Spurius Lucretius, and Lucius Aurelius and dispatched them to Syria to manage the affairs of that kingdom as the senate determined, there being no one likely to oppose their orders, since the king was a child and the principal people were only too glad that the government had not been put in the hands of Demetrius, as they had been almost certain it would be. Octavius and his colleagues thereupon left, with orders in the first place to burn the decked warships, next to hamstring the elephants, and by every means to cripple the royal power."

Appian, Syrian Wars 46:
"[The Senate] thought that it would be more for their advantage that Syria should be governed by an immature boy than by a full-grown man. Learning that there were many elephants in Syria and more ships than had been allowed to Antiochus in the treaty, they sent ambassadors thither, who killed the elephants and burned the ships. It was a pitiful sight, the killing of these rare and tame beasts and the burning of the ships. A certain Leptines of Laodicea was so exasperated by the sight that he stabbed Gnæus Octavius, the chief of this embassy, while he was anointing himself in the gymnasium at that place, and Lysias buried him."

Not all that weak, as ancient literary sources go.

If there was no evidence of elephants afterwards, it would be strong

I think we can say he killed some elephants, certainly enough to hack off the locals and get him killed.

[Duncan Head]

I think it is strong evidence that he killed elephants. I suspect that he thought he killed all the elephants...

[Jim Webster]

I think it is strong evidence that he killed elephants. I suspect that he thought he killed all the elephants...

I wonder if he'd killed all the elephants in Antioch?

Looking at numbers
Antiochus III got 150 in about 207BC (but never fielded them all in battle, except perhaps a Panion where we don't know the numbers fielded) In fact I'm not sure if he ever fielded more than eighty?

To be war elephants they'd be bulls between 20 and 40 years old.

So by 160BC these elephants would be between 67 and 87, by 150BC ten years older. Well after their prime. I'd suggest at this age you'd have a lot of attrition just because of old age and infirmity

But if Antiochus III got 80 bulls and 70 in calf females, you have a chance of an elephant herd that isn't tottering on the edge of decrepitude

Interestingly with regard to breeding, people say it's not done but actually

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273448109_Breeding_Management_of_Captive_Asian_Elephant_Elephas_maximus_in_Range_Countries_and_Zoos

When economic circumstances allowed it, it is done and you can get about 2% of your population born a year. So if Antiochus did establish an elephant herd of females he could expect at least two calves in three years. Given the females didn't have to work and could have more time for socialising etc this could be higher.

So there could have been about twenty six more born in captivity.

So allowing for 60 calves born out of seventy supposedly pregnant females,  and allowing for a low number of births, that's over 80 elephants born after he arrived home
Certainly these numbers would allow him to keep about seventy elephants 'under arms' and divide them between two armies.
It avoids having to work out complicated ways of getting war elephants sent from the East.

Pure speculation 

[Dangun]

I think it is strong evidence that he killed elephants. I suspect that he thought he killed all the elephants...

I am sure elephants were killed.
But I can't imagine he audited the empire to confirm a successful elephantine genocide.

As a source, the clay tablet is more geographically and temporally proximate it to the event, I suspect.

When economic circumstances allowed it, it is done and you can get about 2% of your population born a year. 

2% is interesting. Higher than I would have guessed.

[Jim Webster]

I think it is strong evidence that he killed elephants. I suspect that he thought he killed all the elephants...

I am sure elephants were killed.
But I can't imagine he audited the empire to confirm a successful elephantine genocide.

As a source, the clay tablet is more geographically and temporally proximate it to the event, I suspect.

When economic circumstances allowed it, it is done and you can get about 2% of your population born a year. 

2% is interesting. Higher than I would have guessed.

Same here, then I realised that a lot of the 'evidence' appears to come from people who are campaigning for animals not to be kept in zoos and the agenda is different. Also zoos may well work with a poor breeding population, a lot of their animals are on the elderly side, often because they get elephants that have been working

[simonw]

Breeding elephants is a long, slow, expensive and difficult process. Even in India, it appears that the capture of wild elephants for training and use in warfare was dominant over breeding. It was quicker and cheaper and generated numbers more quickly than breeding. Given the demands of the military for expeditious supply of resources, I'm not sure that any breeding programmes would have met military requirements. It just couldn't generate enough numbers. From the Mauryan sources, it seems that the main approach was to keep and 'manage' tracts of 'wild' elephant forests and to 'harvest' the 'wild' elephants for training rather than to actually breed the elephants in captivity. Refer below:

Kautilya's Arthashastra (translation).

Wild tracts shall be separated from timber-forests. In the
extreme limit of the country, elephant forests, separated from wild
tracts, shall be formed.
The superintendent of forests with his retinue of forest guards
shall not only maintain the up-keep of the forests, but also acquaint
himself with all passages for entrance into, or exit from such of
them as are mountainous or boggy or contain rivers or lakes.
Whoever kills an elephant shall be put to death.
Whoever brings in the pair of tusks of an elephant, dead from
natural causes, shall receive a reward of four-and-a-half panas.
Guards of elephant forests, assisted by those who rear
elephants, those who enchain the legs of elephants, those who
guard the boundaries, those who live in forests, as well as by those
who nurse elephants, shall, with the help of five or seven female
elephants to help in tethering wild ones, trace the whereabouts of
herds of elephants by following the course of urine and dungs left
by elephants and along forest-tracts covered over with branches of
Bhallátaki (Semicarpus Anacardium), and by observing the spots
where elephants slept or sat before or left dungs, or where they had
just destroyed the banks of rivers or lakes. They shall also precisely
ascertain whether any mark is due to the movements of elephants
in herds, of an elephant roaming single, of a stray elephant, of a
Kautilya's Arthashastra
66
leader of herds, of a tusker, of a rogue elephant, of an elephant in
rut, of a young elephant, or of an elephant that has escaped from the
cage.
Experts in catching elephants shall follow the instructions
given to them by the elephant doctor (aníkastha) and catch such
elephants as are possessed of auspicious characteristics and good
character.
The victory of kings (in battles) depends mainly upon
elephants; for elephants, being of large bodily frame, are capable
not only to destroy the arrayed army of an enemy, his fortifications,
and encampments, but also to undertake works that are dangerous
to life.
Elephants bred in countries, such as Kálinga, Anga, Karúsa,
and the East are the best; those of the Dasárna and western
countries are of middle quality; and those of Sauráshtra and
Panchajana countries are of low quality. The might and energy of
all can, however, be improved by suitable training.