ELEPHANTS OR WAR-MACHINES? A HISTORIAN'S DILEMMA

It is widely believed that the Roman army invading Britain in AD 43 was accompanied by elephants. Over the course of the last century, the claim has been repeated by successive historians, who saw no reason to doubt its veracity. Sometimes the emperor himself is said to have ridden on one of them. However, this presupposes that trained elephants were freely available for deployment by the Roman army. But was this really the case? Were elephants ever utilized by the imperial Roman army?

By Duncan B Campbell

A recent book on the conquest of Roman Britain includes an imaginative painting of the emperor Claudius arriving in a British village at the head of a line of marching legionaries. The emperor and his legate, Aulus Plautius, is shown proudly standing in a large timber turret balanced on the back of an Indian elephant. The animal’s handler, carrying the characteristic hooked and pointed goad, walks carefully beside it. We might note that, according to the Roman historian Livy, it was the handler’s job, if the elephant became uncontrollable, to kill it instantly by driving a spike “between the ears, where the neck joins the head” (Livy, Ad Urbe Conditia 27.49.1). Of course, this act would be impossible for someone walking alongside, and could only be accomplished by someone sitting…

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Ancient Warfare (Digital) - 1 Issue, AW XVII.2

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