Hellenistic War Elephants used for other purposes?

[Aetius-last-of-the-Romans]

Another odd question for the forum members.

Somewhere at the back of my mind (maybe erroneously) I have it that there is a primary Hellenistic/Roman sources that mentions a prohibition on the use of 'war-elephants' for other (commercial) purposes.
I think a 'master of elephants' or 'keeper' or some such is being reprimanded or chastised for hiring out some of his elephants.

Does this ring any bells with anybody and if so, can you give me a reference source please?

Many thanks
Mark

[lionheartrjc]

The Roman emperors appointed a procurator ad elephantos.  I cannot find any reference to the story, but it sounds plausible.

Richard

[Aetius-last-of-the-Romans]

Thank you Richard.
I have it in my mind that it was a reference to a Hellenistic elephant stable - maybe even Ptolemaic.
But I shall continue my search ... maybe fruitlessly 

[Ian61]

Pretty useful for shifting heavy gear about. I am not sure they thought much about animal welfare, except that they needed to keep them alive but the animals might have enjoyed some variety.

[Jim Webster]

Thinking about it, I wonder if the training of elephants encompassed a wider range of activities than just wearing a howdah and stomping on people?

A lot of the 'civilian' stuff would be useful for the army, pulling loads, lifting stuff, and it could easily be the first general stage of training.

[Adrian Nayler]

The Roman emperors appointed a procurator ad elephantos.  I cannot find any reference to the story, but it sounds plausible.

Richard

Further to Richard's note, the procuratorial reference is CIL VI, 8583 a funerary inscription from Rome to Ti. Claudius Speclator, an Imperial freedman who was Procurator Laurento ad elephantos. His duties were probably connected with the supply of elephants for use in the arena. Laurentium was the location of an Imperial estate in the first century AD. (The CIL is the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, a multi-volume publication of Roman inscriptions.)

Adrian.

[dwkay57]

Suetonius - The Twelve Caesars, Claudius, 11 - "an elephant drawn carriage for her image" The "her" in this case is Livia, his grandmother.

Previous discussions on elephants and Romans (circa 2014), I think concluded that the Romans used them for circuses and potentially getting their own mounts used to being near elephants, but were too sensible to put them into the heat of battle!

[DBS]

If there was such a prohibition, I suspect it may be down to lèse-majesté.  Elephants are a royal prerogative, symbolic of their power and prestige.  The monarch might possibly lend you an elephant or two for a specific task, as a mark of extreme favour, but such rare and expensive creatures are not generally for use on mundane construction or transportation tasks; that is what slaves are for, and they are a lot cheaper to boot.

Same goes for the Romans to a degree.  Someone like Crassus can afford them, but for him the best use is to display/kill them at the Games, for his greater glory and electoral success.  Republican generals might make use of them in the Near East if some are available, whether recently captured or used by a client state, but at the end of the campaign they are going back to Rome for his Triumph, and probably subsequent Games.  Emperors can afford them, but a) if they are a useful military weapon, which generals do you trust to have them in local command; b) they cost a lot to maintain, is an elephant corps worth the cost of a much more useful and employable legion or two; and c) Emperors need them for Games, or for giving to sons and favoured courtiers for their Games.

Yes, Ccccclaudius takes one or two to Britain, but he is an antiquarian, and does it for spectacle and psyops, not practical combat use.

On a related note, I have wondered about whether there was any use of the Syrian elephant breed before they became extinct.  We know the Assyrians hunted them.  Hunting them is a spectacular sport and the ivory looks nice in your palace, whatever we might think of the practice now.  Wiki says the breed is thought to have become extinct in the Hellenistic period but gives no reference for that assertion.

Possibilities:
- the breed was intractable;
- the breed was actually hunted to extinction at an earlier date, long before anyone thought of a better use for them;
- no one worked out how to tame them except the Indians, so needed contact with them before elephants further west could be domesticated;
- no one except the Indians thought they were good for anything other than sport and ivory, so needed contact with them before...
- the numbers of Syrian elephants were too few to merit organised domestication;
- or maybe they were actually used in limited numbers without it being apparent to modern scholarship?

Darius III is credited with a handful against Alexander; Indian beasts are usually assumed, but maybe he had a few locals?  If anyone could afford to establish an elephant corps it is the King of Kings.  Hannibal of course had his last elephant in 216, supposedly named Surus...  Syrian elephants presumably were more used to the cold than African forest or Indian species, given the native climate.  An advantage when all the Africans succumb to the Italian winter?

Successor monarchs do not get the elephant bug until encountering them in India with Alexander, but then do try to keep herds.  Easy for Ptolemy to reach down the Red Sea coast and establish ports, elephants, for the hunting of, but if you are the Seleucids and you realise you actually have some of these creatures back home...  Maybe not enough to establish a corps from scratch, but maybe to supplement an Indian herd?  It might even explain the surprising longevity of the Seleucid elephant corps and why the Syrians supposedly went extinct precisely at this period, not just because of excessive poaching.

Just a thought, and wholly unproveable!

[dwkay57]

As per the discussion in 2014, I'm still not convinced Dio's "gathering equipment and elephants" means he rode one in glory through the streets of ancient Colchester.

[DBS]

As per the discussion in 2014, I'm still not convinced Dio's "gathering equipment and elephants" means he rode one in glory through the streets of ancient Colchester.

Not suggesting he did.  Bit difficult as Colchester does not exist and we really do not know what the oppidum of "Camulodunum" looked like.  Just as likely that the elephants, if indeed taken, were paraded around the area; the locals will certainly get the message.

[Adrian Nayler]

Perhaps a small digression on the elephants obtained by the Ptolemaic kingdom as touched on by David S. might be of interest? I don't think it has been raised on the forum before.

A study was published in 2013 aimed squarely at conservation of the elephant population in modern-day Eritrea – the potential descendants of the populations thought to have been hunted by the Ptolemies. It studied the current population's DNA (retrieved from their dung) and compared it with other elephant populations on the African continent. The results were somewhat surprising.

Scholars previously believed that the Ptolemies hunted forest elephants in this area. This is largely due to the historical account of the battle of Raphia in 217 BCE which indicates that the Ptolemaic elephants were smaller in stature that the Seleucids and at a disadvantage. Thus the view that the Seleucids used Indian elephants and the Ptolemies smaller forest elephants for the potential alternative savanna elephants are larger than the Indian.

The study found that the isolated Eritrean population are actually of the savanna species with closer genetic affinity to Eastern than to North Central savanna elephant populations. It could not confirm that these are the 'same' elephants that lived in the region in Antiquity but the population is believed to have been isolated for a long time.

That's something to ponder as it doesn't seem to fit with the ancient battle description.

The study can be found here:

https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.3qh1s

Adrian.

[DBS]

Interesting.

There are at least three Red Sea coast ports clearly associated with the trade in elephants and ivory: the Ptolemaic foundations of Philotera in Egypt and Ptolemais Theron in either Sudan or Eritrea, depending on your preference for site identification; plus Adulis in Eritrea.

The Periplus notes Adulis as the export point for ivory hunted inland, brought into Axum, then taken to Adulis, though the author also notes that very occasionally an elephant herd is spotted wandering near the coast at Adulis.  However, there is also the Throne of Adulis to be considered, or rather the Ptolemaic stele that was behind the throne and which Cosmas conflated with the Throne's Axumite inscription.  The Ptolemaic inscription, attributed to P III, boasts about Ptolemy's campaigns, including this bit:

Great King Ptolemy... led an expedition into Asia with a force of elephants from Troglodytis and Ethiopia.  These animals his father and he first hunted out from these places and brought to Egypt for use in war.  Having become master of all the land west of the Euphrates - Cilicia, Pamphylia, Ionia, Hellespont, Thrace, and all the armed forces in those lands as well as Indian elephants... he crossed the Euphrates river and subdued Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Susiana, Persis, Media, as far as Bactria...

So Ptolemy III is claiming to have elephants from Troglodytis and Ethiopia, and to have captured/acquired Indian elephants from Asia west of the Euphrates.

Troglodytis presumably could refer to either the upper Nile or the Red Sea coast, given ancient authors placed Troglodytae in both regions.

Indian elephants west of the Euphrates?  Seleucid beasts in Antioch?  Or just, just possibly, my musing about Syrian beasts, especially if assumed to be of similar stock to the Indian species?  Even more so if any mixed in with true Indians.

[Duncan Head]

A study was published in 2013 aimed squarely at conservation of the elephant population in modern-day Eritrea – the potential descendants of the populations thought to have been hunted by the Ptolemies.

And there's a 2016 paper saying "and therefore Polybios was wrong about Raphia".

[DBS]

Plus I have just found this paper on the decline of Ptolemaic elephant hunting:

Ptolemaic elephant hunting

[Aetius-last-of-the-Romans]

All very interesting and helpful folks. Thank you.
As always - if you want to raise a good discussion on the forum just put something about elephants in your question 

As an aside, another good reason for hunting Elephants and the possible extinction of the Syrian branch of the family is that they can be a complete nuisance and pest to local agriculture.

There is a C13th Khmer inscription dedicating a piece of land that a land owner has been forced to give to a local monastery in compensation, as he has killed two of the 'abbots' elephants for repeatedly eating his rice crop. As he had no elephants of his own, a piece of his land was taken in forfeit to replace the killed elephants. 
Of course wild elephants were very common in southeast Asia, possibly more so than in Mesopotamia, but an elephant can smell a good meal from many miles away and the local Syrian farmers would have been equally less than happy about their raiding, I'd suggest.

But I will continue my search for the prohibition/chastisement of a Hellenistic elephant 'master/keeper' for using his masters elephants, on the side for profit, as I am sure it exits (not only in my head)