AWXVII.2: A Historian's Dillema (Claudius' elephants in Britain)

[Robert Vermaat]

I was a bit disappointed by the article, mainly because I have come to expect more from an excellent author such as Duncan B. Campbell.

For some reason he thinks he needs to address the 'routine use' of elephant in the Roman army, something I think nobody actually claims.
He also needs to discredit Dio (with a passage that can easily be ascribed to a scribal error) in order to discredit the passage about Claudius taking elephants to Britain.
That Polyaenus describes Julius Caesar taking one elephant to Britain is mentioned, but strangely left at that - discrediting authors is btw not the preferred way to write about history.
For some reason we have to doubt the Roman's  capability for transporting elephants to Britain, even when we know Caesar did it as well, not to mention Hannibal getting 37 of the them from Arica to Europe?
The most disturbing 'evidence' against the elephants in Britain was the comparison to their march to Camelodunum: the author compared the 190km and back in 16 days to Hannibal covering 148km in 10 days. That raised my eyebrows: the road to Colchester is quite different than a march across the Alps?? Why on earth would be even begin to compare both journeys?
Finally, a case is made for a confusion with siege machines: the 'helepoleon/helepolis' is marched in front of the reader to 'explain' a name confusion for a siege engine, wheeled tower or some enormous mache like it. Why, I ask you? When we need no siege engine to begin with, we actually don't know any occasions of such a confusion, we need to assume an error in the mind of Dio (who then writes a passage about elephants), AND we are left to imagine several of such enormous machines being hauled to Colchester (which had no stone walls) and back in 16 days, when we are told to disbelieve that elephants could imposibly do so?

As I said, I was disappointd with this article.

[Nathan Ross]

Dio (with a passage that can easily be ascribed to a scribal error) in order to discredit the passage about Claudius taking elephants to Britain.

It did seem a strange suggestion. But the passage in Dio is quite odd too - 'other equipment, including elephants'... And Dio says nothing about this 'equipment' actually being brought across the Channel anyway.

While the suggesiton that the 'elephant' was some sort of siege tower seems a bit fanciful (why would such a thing be needed in Britain?), there may have been another sort of 'equipment' going by that name... What about these odd-looking things, from Trajan's Column, for example? Used here to assault the oppidum of Sarmezigetusa - could have usueful against the British fortifications too?