Rome destroyed Seleucid Elephants

[Timotheus]

Can anyone help me?

I remember reading years ago that the Romans inflicted major hard on the dwindling Seleucid Empire when they sent agents that sucessfully hangstrung (and thus permanently crippling) a large number of their Indian elephants.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? I wish I could remember the source but its completley escaping me.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, after reading the post and seeing it wasn't about Rome being destroyed by Selucid elepahants.... :roll: :oops:
I seem to recall this, but unfortunately, i am in the same boat as you, so, sorry, I can't help!

[Jona Lendering]

Why destroying those animals if you can use them in your own armies (cf. Rome's elephants at Cynoscephalae) or enjoy a good venatio in the circus? I doubt whether the Romans ever destroyed war elephants; probably, there's a misunderstanding of the Peace of Apamea, in which Rome insisted that Antiochus the Great would surrender his animals.

The text is in Polybius 21.42.12; Livy 38.38 believes all elephants had to be surrendered, not just those present at Apamea.

[Timotheus]

Why destroying those animals if you can use them in your own armies (cf. Rome's elephants at Cynoscephalae) or enjoy a good venatio in the circus? I doubt whether the Romans ever destroyed war elephants; probably, there's a misunderstanding of the Peace of Apamea, in which Rome insisted that Antiochus the Great would surrender his animals.

The text is in Polybius 21.42.12; Livy 38.38 believes all elephants had to be surrendered, not just those present at Apamea.

To answer your question, what I remember reading was that Roman agents were dispatched who entered the mud wallows of the Seleucid elephants and hamstrung a large number of them. The vague memories I have was that Rome had not yet defeated the Seleucids so it would be before the Romans could order that the elephants be handed over.

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

Can anyone help me?

I remember reading years ago that the Romans inflicted major hard on the dwindling Seleucid Empire when they sent agents that sucessfully hangstrung (and thus permanently crippling) a large number of their Indian elephants.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? I wish I could remember the source but its completley escaping me.

Any help would be appreciated.

Polybius 31.2.11:

"9 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, 10 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. 11 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. 12"

[D B Campbell]

I doubt whether the Romans ever destroyed war elephants; probably, there's a misunderstanding of the Peace of Apamea, in which Rome insisted that Antiochus the Great would surrender his animals.

Good point. But Walbank explains that, at Apamea, "The elephants were not all handed over, and the Romans took steps to hamstring them only in 163/2 (xxxi. 2. 11); cf. Scullard, The Elephant, 185–8".