Cathiginian War Elephants

[Jona Lendering]

They used the african elephant

Wasn't it a smaller, now extinct, species of elephant, more akin to the Indian elephant? I think it is known as the North-African, or Forest, elephant.

The Forest elephant is the Loxodanta Africana Cyclotis, which still exists and lives in central Africa; the North-African elephant is called Loxodanta Atlantica.

According to Serge Lancel's Hannibal (1995), this was the type of elephant that Hannibal wanted to use, but only one of them was still alive when he captured Capua.

Still, it made a great impression, and the Romans were to hunt down these elephants, which were killed in the amphitheaters. The species is now extinct.