AFRICAN ELEPHANT.—Loxodonta Africana.
There is a famous combat mentioned of a Roman with an elephant, when Hannibal compelled our prisoners to fight against each other. The one who had survived all the others he placed before an elephant, and promised him his life if he should slay it; upon which the man advanced alone into the arena, and, to the great regret of the Carthaginians, succeeded in doing so. Hannibal, however, thinking that the news of this victory might cause a feeling of contempt for these animals, sent some horsemen to kill the man on his way home. In our battles with Pyrrhus it was found, on making trial, that it was extremely easy to cut off the trunks of these animals. In the second consulship of Pompey at the dedication of the temple of Venus Victrix, twenty elephants, or, as some say, seventeen, fought in the Circus against a number of GÆtulians, who attacked them with javelins. One of these animals fought in a most astonishing manner; for, although pierced through the feet, it dragged itself on its knees towards the troop, and seizing their bucklers, tossed them aloft into the air: and as they came to the ground it greatly amused the spectators, for they whirled round and round in the air, just as if they had been thrown up with a certain degree of skill, and not by the frantic fury of a wild beast. Another very wonderful circumstance happened; an elephant was killed by a single blow. The weapon pierced the animal below the eye, and entered the vital part of the head. The elephants attempted, too, by their united efforts, to break down the enclosure, not without great confusion among the people who sat next to the iron gratings. It was in consequence of this circumstance, that CÆsar, the Dictator, when he was afterwards about to exhibit a similar spectacle, had the arena surrounded with trenches of water. These were lately filled up by the Emperor Nero, when he added the seats for the equestrian order. When, however, the elephants in the exhibition given by Pompey had lost all hopes of escaping, they implored the compassion of the multitude by attitudes which surpass all description, and with a kind of lamentation bewailed their unhappy fate. So greatly were the people affected by the scene, that, forgetting the general altogether, and his munificence displayed in their honor, the whole assembly rose up in tears, and showered curses on Pompey, of which he soon afterwards became the victim. They fought also in the third consulship of the Dictator CÆsar, twenty of them against five hundred foot soldiers. On another occasion twenty elephants, carrying towers, and each defended by sixty men, were opposed to the same number of foot soldiers as before, and an equal number of horsemen. Afterwards, under the Emperors Claudius and Nero, the last exploit that the gladiators performed was fighting single-handed with elephants.
The elephant is said to display such a merciful disposition towards animals that are weaker than itself, that, when it finds itself in a flock of sheep, it will remove with its trunk those that are in the way, lest it should unintentionally trample upon them. They will never do any mischief except when provoked, and they are of a disposition so sociable, that they always move about in herds, no animal being less fond of a solitary life. When surrounded by a troop of horsemen, they place in the centre of the herd those that are weak, weary, or wounded, and then take the front rank each in its turn, just as though they acted under command and in accordance with discipline.
