Hi, I’m the History Guy. I  have a degree in history,  

and I love history. And if you love  history too, this is the channel for you.

Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants  to attack the Romans. It is one of the most  

well remembered pieces of ancient history,  so striking to the imagination that it might  

well be the only thing you remember from  your high school world history class. But  

while the story of Hannibal crossing the Alps  with the elephants is pretty well remembered,  

the mystery, the forgotten part, is really the  elephants themselves, because we don't actually  

know very much about them at all. We don't  even know what kind of elephants they were.

Elephants have been trained and used in warfare  since at least 400 BC. Starting most likely in  

India, and spreading to Persia, where Alexander's  army first met them at the Battle of Gaugamela  

in 331 BC, and five years later at the Battle of  Hydaspes. Their value was largely in intimidation,  

using their great size, and even smell to route  troops. But they could be terrible in battle,  

rending with their tusks, stomping men with  their giant feet, and throwing men with their  

trunks. But they were difficult to control,  and are not naturally aggressive. They often  

had to be prodded into battle, sometimes  with hot irons, or even plied with alcohol,  

and the riders were usually armed with a hammer  and a spike that could be driven into the base  

of the animal skull and kill it, in case they  lost control, and the elephant attacked their  

own troops. In North Africa, war elephants  were used by the Ptolemaic Kingdoms of Egypt,  

and the Numidians. While the use of war elephants  in the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage  

are most famous, Romans actually first faced war  elephants in the Pyrrhic Wars, as early as 280 BC.

The Punic Wars, fought between Rome, and Carthage,  

were the result of the two empires' competition to  dominate the Mediterranean. The First Punic War,  

fought between 264, and 221 BC, resulted in a  loss for the Carthaginians. The Carthaginian war  

elephants did prove effective in the First  Punic War when the terrain was suitable,  

notably at the Battle of Tunis in 255  BC, but were not enough to turn the  

war in Carthage's favor. The loss established  Rome as the naval power in the Mediterranean.

But it was the desire to make good their losses,  and the need to gain treasure to pay the debts  

from the loss in the First Punic War, that  compelled Carthage to pursue the conquest of  

Iberia. It was the success of that conquest that  compelled the Romans to fabricate another reason  

for war in 218 BC, over the Carthaginian conquest  of a Roman allied Greek city on the Iberian coast.  

With their fleet controlling the Mediterranean,  and confident that the Alps provided a barrier  

to invasion through Iberia, Rome fully expected  the second Punic War to be fought in Carthage.  

But Hannibal had a surprise for them, leading a  large army, including dozens of war elephants,  

across the Alps to attack Rome from the  north. Which brings us to the first mystery,  

where did Hannibal get his elephants? While  elephants at one time roamed almost all the earth,  

by Hannibal's time there were only the  two species we have today remaining,  

the African elephant, and the Indian, or  Asiatic elephant. The natural habitat of  

African elephants was closer to Carthage, which is  on the Mediterranean coast in modern-day Tunisia,  

but was still a long way away south of the Sahara  Desert. And even if they could be imported,  

perhaps up the Nile Valley, African elephants are  notoriously difficult to domesticate and control,  

making them less useful in war. Indian elephants  on the other hand are much easier to domesticate,  

and where the animals used against Alexander,  while there was some international trade in  

Indian elephants, there was no ready population  in North Africa, and it begs the question of  

how Carthage could acquire them in large  numbers. One possible answer offered by  

many is the North African elephant. The argument  is that there was some breed of elephant, either  

a subspecies of the African bush elephant, or a  separate species that lived north of the Sahara.  

Depictions on Carthaginian coins suggest that  they were smaller than other African elephants,  

perhaps eight and a half feet at the shoulder, but  had the unmistakable shape of African elephants.

Given their use in war, some historians speculate  that they may have been easier to domesticate than  

African bush elephants. As no example survives  today, and there are no modern wild elephant  

populations in North Africa, the speculation is  that the species went extinct due to overhunting,  

for use in war, use in the Roman arenas, and for  their ivory. And the increasing errata fication of  

North Africa around 100 AD. While the existence  of such a species would answer some questions,  

the description is actually problematic, not only  are there no surviving North African elephants,  

there aren't even any known remains that  could be tested. Literally the entire  

species is predicated upon a few vague ancient  historian accounts that might not be reliable,  

and a couple of Carthaginian coins.  Animal taxonomists note that if there  

was a population of elephants in North  Africa in Hannibal's time, they would  

almost certainly had to have been imported  there by humans, as even in Hannibal's time,  

North Africa was too arid to produce enough  forage to support a population of wild elephants.

Others suggest that Carthage used  Indian elephants acquired by trade,  

and possibly bred in Ptolemaic Egypt.  Hannibal's own war elephant was named Surus,  

where some think means “the Syrian  '' suggesting that it was descended  

from the war elephants used by the Assyrians,  Asiatic elephants from their westernmost range.

Whether he used African, or Asiatic  elephants, or some mix of the two,  

crossing the Alps is difficult for  tropical animals. By most accounts,  

several died in the crossing. Hannibal's elephants  actually only participated in one battle with the  

Romans during the campaign, at the Battle  of the river Trebia, in December of 218 BC.  

There they helped to rout the Roman cavalry and  secure a Carthaginian victory. Most died of the  

cold the following winter, and they did not  fight in the later battles of the campaign.

While he was able, with the help of Gallic  allies who also opposed Rome, to ravage Italy,  

and threaten Rome herself, Rome responded  by taking an army across the Mediterranean,  

and attacking Carthage, eventually compelling  Hannibal to return to defend his home. There  

he was defeated, and once again Carthage  was crippled with harsh surrender terms.  

But it was in the final famous battle of  the war, the Battle of Zama, in 202 BC,  

that Hannibal's elephants, battle accounts  say as many as 80 were used played, another  

famous role. This time being outsmarted by Roman  tactics, with the Romans moving quickly aside,  

forcing the elephants down corridors between their  columns, where they could be killed by javelins.

Or did they? Because the Battle of Zama represents  perhaps the most intriguing problem with our  

understanding of Hannibal's elephants, and that  is that we have almost no reliable information  

at all, regarding Hannibal's elephants. As  Professor Yozan Mosig of the University of  

Nebraska at Kearney notes, “it is highly  improbable that Carthage could deploy 80  

war elephants at Zama. If they had that many  war elephants available, then surely they would  

have deployed them during one of the many other  battles during the Roman invasion of Carthage,  

where they are conspicuous for their absence from  battle histories.” And the description of how  

the elephants were defeated doesn't really make  sense, they were trained animals who had riders,  

who would have steered them away from these  Roman corridors. So why have we heard so much  

about the Roman defeat of Hannibal's elephants  at Zama? Well one possible reason is because all  

remaining histories of the Battle of Zama are  written by Roman historians, notably Polybius,  

who had every reason to exaggerate the Roman  victory at Zama. No Carthaginian accounts of the  

battle survive. And the improbable description  of how the elephants were defeated, raises the  

very real possibility that there were in fact,  no elephants at the Battle of Zama. And in fact,  

some historians even argue that the entire  Battle of Zama itself might have been a hoax,  

created by the Romans to burnish  the reputation of their army.

One telling story is Polybius account of how  Hannibal had to cross the river Rhone on his  

way to cross the Alps, because Polybius tells  a complex story about how the Carthaginians  

had to build special barges, and cover them with  dirt to confuse the elephants into thinking they  

were on land, presumably because they were so  afraid of water. But in fact elephants are not  

afraid of water, they are very good swimmers  and rather easily coaxed to cross rivers,  

which is something that a Carthaginian would have  known, but a Roman historian who knew virtually  

nothing about these animals, would not. And  therein lies the rub, because all of our existing  

descriptions of Hannibal's elephants come from  Roman historians, who very likely, never once,  

saw an elephant. And that is a telling lesson  about our understanding of ancient, and modern  

history. The fact that historians will regularly,  and confidently tell you that Hannibal was using  

a species of elephants, that animal taxonomists  have yet to agree even existed, belies the fact  

that all history comes from my point of view,  and is potentially flawed. And all good students  

of history must always be willing to question  everything that we think we know, about history.

I’m the History Guy. I hope you enjoyed this  episode of my series, 5 minutes of history,  

short snippets of forgotten history 5 to  10 minutes long, and if you did enjoy then  

please go ahead and put that thumbs up button  that's on your left. If you have any questions,  

or comments, feel free to write those in the  comment section, and I will be happy to respond.  

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