[greek enemies] Early Chartaginian army\'s

[PMBardunias]

Let me be clear that I am not assuming Polybius to be wrong in any way. What I am saying is probably incorrect is the modern notion that Cyclotis was very much smaller based on a false analysis of existant dwarf populations- as in too small to bear turrets for example. I have read this many times.

One suspects therefore that if all the elephants had been of the same species, but Ptolemy's the smaller by and large, the result would have been the same....the smaller animals " backing off" from confronting an opponent obviously bigger than themselves - which suggests in turn that those that did fight were not significantly smaller, as Paul B's table suggests.

There has been suggestion that those African elephants that did fight were of the true, large bush variety. Audulis diferentiates two types and I think it a fair assumption that there were Troglyditic that equate to either Cyclotis or a wholly new subspecies, while the other are in fact the "bush" variety from southern Sudan or Eritrea. If true then these surely had the potential to be as big as the Asians. There was a long period between the Laodicean war and Raphia though, so perhaps they had stopped getting the larger type from so far south.