Should War Elephants be Pants in Rules?

[Arrigo]

Thanks. Well, I read those articles, and I’m not at all convinced. They prove that Eritrean elephants are the savannah species. But there’s no evidence that Ptolemy got his elephants from there; he traded with Eritrea, sure. But why would he get elephants from there? Forest elephants were native to North Africa in ancient times; it is far more likely that he got them locally. After all, there is no suggestion that the Carthaginians got their elephants from Eritrea.
I’m still inclined to believe Polybios.

First we know they get from there because we have accounts of the elephant hunts, and also we have stelae that record these hunts in situ. Ptolemy II And III advertised they were getting their nellies from there not from North Africa.  Carthage is a completely different matter and they sourced their war beast from different areas.

[Jjonas]

Here is a nice blog about the subject of Raphia elephant experiences:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/after-2000-years-ptolemys-war-elephants-are-revealed

My theory is that whatever the species the Ptolemaic elephants on the left wing were outnumbered three to two by the best elephants on the Seleucid side. That may be the strongest reason why the Ptolemaic screen was overrun. On the other wing the odds were not as stacked against the Ptolemaic beasts which held off their opponents- so size or type made no difference.

One other thing- Savannah elephants in modern times are more tame able than used to be thought. But there is a limit- juvenile male elephants will bond with their handlers - but as soon as they reach full size they must be sent off as they are too dangerous to the handlers and people.
So the Ptolemaic hunters probably knew to collect younger elephants to ship up to Egypt. One option is that these juvenile elephants were no match for older veteran Asian elephants which may have been bigger.
Polybius probably only ever saw elephants in Roman armies. These were from Numidia.

One thing remains true- war elephants look cool.

[williamb]

While elephants often had a mixed result when used in combat Pyrrhus was able to use them with some success.  Hannibal's elephants were successful at  Trebia panicking the Roman cavalry.  There is one battle where they were decisive.   Referred to as "The Elephant Victory" of 273BC.   A Seleucid army with 16 elephants routed a Galatian army with only the elephants having a role in combat.   Note the number of Galatian cavalry present is probably the total for the entire Galatian army including the infantry.  The actual number of cavalry was most likely 1/10th of that based on later Byzantine records for the area.   Duncan Head mentions the battle in "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars", noting that number of cavalry is exaggerated being greater than the number of Galatians that migrated to Asia Minor.   Lucian's "Zeuxis" is the source for the account of this battle.  The Greek version is on the Persus Digital Library and an English translation can be found here in sections 8 to 11: http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:zeuxis-and-antiochus

[Easy E]

Thanks for the link to the primary source.