150 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT
and
spirit.* The possession of greater courage in battle on the part of the
Asiatic breed may perhaps be explained by their better training in
warlike operations. Pliny, indeed, declares that African elephants were
terrified at the very sight of their Asiatic cousins.f That, however,
the latter should be the larger is entirely contrary to modern
experience, and can only be explained by the conjecture that the
elephants secured by the Romans in Northern Africa were distinctly
inferior to those from the equatorial -regions.
The
Romans had good opportunity to compare the different races as the war
elephants of Pyrrhus, the first they encountered, and later those of
the Asiatic potentates they overcame were of the Asiatic race, while
those led against them by the Numidian kings Jugurtha (d. 104 B. C.)
and Juba (d. 46 B. C.) were Africans. J This latter type appears on
almost all the Roman coins bearing representations of the elephant, as,
indeed, African elephants were the only ones used—and these but
rarely—by the Romans in military operations.** It may be noted in this
connection that on coins the figures symbolizing the province of Africa
almost invariably bear as a headcovering the scalp and trunk, though
rarely the tusks, of the elephant. § The Asiatic coins naturally offer
us the Asiatic type of the animal.
Pliny
tells us, on the authority of Mucianus, thrice consul, of a learned
elephant which had been taught the Greek characters, and wrote (or
spelled out) the following words in this language: "I have written and
I have dedicated the
*Pomponii Meise, "De choregraphico," Lib. II, cap. 7.
fPlinii,
"Hist. Nat.," lib. VIII, cap. 9. Julian (hist, anm., cap. 8) states
that some Indian elephants reached the height of 7 cubits, about 13 ft.
tArmandi, op. cit., p. 278.
**Armandi, op. cit., p. 8.
lArmandi, op. cit., p. 18.
