Elephants and the battle at Zama

[Quintus Sertorius]

Perhaps I have missed something, but when I read accounts of Zama I always read that Scipio was really smart by opening pathways in his ranks for Hannibal's elephants to pass through, thereby avoiding losing men and formation to the beasts. Sounds sensible but.....

Were the elephants on rails so they could not alter direction and turn into the maniples and clobber them? What happened to the elephants? Did they keep going until they reached the sea!

As I said, I may have missed something, but I have yet to read an explanation of what actually happened tactically. So, thinks I, the boys at RAT will have the answer.

I await with bated breath!
Quintus
(aka Guido Aston)

[L C Cinna]

Good question!

My guess is that the velites teased or herded them into the gaps (maybe killing the drivers already???). Elephants are actually pretty sensitive, so maybe they were enraged and followed the people who hurt them to attack them, or they were so drugged that it was hard for the drivers(if still alive) to control them properly...

But there are other things I really wonder about:

1st why did they attack the Romans all by themselves without the main line following a bit behind? Looks like the Romans had enough time to let them trough and close the gaps before anything happened... This either means the elephants were already not in proper control anymore or Hannibal made a very big mistake imho.


2nd why did he deploy the elephants like that? And why did Antiochos do the same at Magnesia? Hannibal's advice too?

It seems Hannibal didn't know how to make proper use of Elephants.He hadn't used them against before afaik as his elephants in Italy had died before they could really be of use. Maybe he only knew how Pyrrhos had scared the Romans like that when they first met him and thought it would work again???

I mean Hannibal is famous for his tactical genius during his campaign (maybe because there he did not have elephants?)...this is one big blunder...if he deploys them like they should be used, on his flanks opposite the Roman cavalry (wouldn't use them against the Numidians as their horses probably were mroe used to those animals), the day might be his because the Roman cavalry can'T break through and return later on....

[Aryaman2]

At Magnesia elephants were deployed in front of the phalanx in the center and in both wings, however we don´t hear from them in the battle against enemy cavalry in the wings, and in the center they were used as shooting platforms, not to charge the enemy infantry.

[Eleatic Guest]

[color=darkblue]
Were the elephants on rails so they could not alter direction and turn into the maniples and clobber them? What happened to the elephants? Did they keep going until they reached the sea!

I think you have to interpret Scipio's tactics in the sense that he deployed his legions so loosely that there was enough room for manoevering when Hannibal's elephant attacked. This was in stark contrast to the 255 BC battle at Tunes when the Roman commander did exactly the wrong thing and ammassed his troops to counter the beast's assault.

Certainly the elephants were not charging in a stupid autopilot mode, but the Roman channelling tactics may gave them 'an incentive' to follow further their straight direction. Do not forget that once the elephants were surrounded on both sides, they exposed their vulnerable sides to the light troops and effective steering to the left and right by the mahouts would be soon impossible. Then the natural direction of the elephants may have been where the least resistance was to be expected, that is straight ahead.

All in all, I found Polybios's account very credible, as long as we do not fall into the trap of interpreting it too schematically.

[PMBardunias]

This was in stark contrast to the 255 BC battle at Tunes when the Roman commander did exactly the wrong thing and ammassed his troops to counter the beast's assault.

Regulus did nothing wrong in terms of his deployment against elephants. Polybios says as much. Where Regulus went wrong is that he was not only fighting a line of elephants and set himself up for envelopment.

Polybios Book 1, chapter 33:

"In thus making their whole line shorter and deeper than before they had been correct enough in so far as concerned the coming encounter with the elephants, but as to that with the cavalry, which largely outnumbered theirs, they were very wide of the mark. "

Elephants do not charge into packed ranks of men like battering rams. They will engage the front ranks with tusk or trunk, but in general they seem to move across the front rather into the mass. This is still brutal, since they are picking off men as they go and all the while missiles are coming down from above. When they find themselves surrounded by troops it is more likely that men have fled from them, forming pockets, than the elephants fighting directly into groups.

If elephants could be made to charge directly into massed men, then Scipio's tactics would be suicidal, for the front of each of his columns of men was much wider than an elephant. Obviously the elephants contacted the front of the ranks, then moved laterally along the ranks until penetrating the gaps and being channel through without being able to penetrate laterally.

As for Zama, there was a substantial screen of light troops with the elephants. These seem to have been reluctant to enter a channel between unbroken ranks of heavier men. Penetrating an intentional gap, as opposed to a gap formed by breaking, fleeing men is no easy task.

[M. Demetrius]

From Polybius' description, it seems that the "checkerboard" gaps were filled by velites in the Roman lines, and when the elephants charged, the velites fell back, drawing the elephants in, then merged with the ranks on either side, effectively isolating and flanking the elephants, and peppering their sides with javelins.

I imagine the elephants' mahouts would be looking mostly forward, and the elephants would be trained to charge into a retreating mass of men, rather than a wall of shields and pila, since that would be less survivable.

Had Scipio not arranged this in advance, it would not have been effective. But knowing what they were to do caused great confusion in the elephant ranks, and led to their running around wildly instead of simply stomping and wounding the Romans. He does not say the Romans incurred no casualties, just that the elephants were turned back, and many of them killed. When the elephant fell, no doubt his riders didn't last long, either.

[Timotheus]

The best guess would be that the Romans targeted the drivers very easrly on and then the uncontrolled elephants stuck to the paths of least resistance which meant they stayed in the channel the Roman legions left for them.

As for Hannibal, I am guessing that since elephants are such wildcards in battle that he kept his forces well back so that if they were repulsed by the Romans they didnt turn around and smash straight into the Carthaginian forces.

[M. Demetrius]

That's a reasonable guess, Timotheus, but I guess I'd have to check out the Polybius anecdote to see. IIRC, he was expecting his something like 80 elephants to smash the Roman lines and cause panic. So he didn't hang back too far.

Anybody else have a better memory than I on this?

[Timotheus]

That's a reasonable guess, Timotheus, but I guess I'd have to check out the Polybius anecdote to see. IIRC, he was expecting his something like 80 elephants to smash the Roman lines and cause panic. So he didn't hang back too far.

Anybody else have a better memory than I on this?

If it was 80 elephants then that is an even better reason to hang back. The more of them there are the greater the danger to your own troops and the farther back you go.

Also the front lines of Hannibals troops were rather green. I would expect he would want to keep them as far from the elephants as possible to avoid the risk of them breaking and running if the elephants start to get too close.

[M. Demetrius]

http://www.roman-empire.net/army/zama.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zama
Polybius: The Rise of the Roman Empire XV.8-15 basically tells the same story as above.

All hats off to Scipio, who, though he could have lost the battle after the elephants were driven off, held his nerve and his ground, and maneuvered his lines to prevent being flanked. The cavalry returned and broke the center of the line, and many Carthagenians were wiped out as a result.

[PMBardunias]

The best guess would be that the Romans targeted the drivers very easrly on and then the uncontrolled elephants stuck to the paths of least resistance which meant they stayed in the channel the Roman legions left for them.

Targeting Mahouts is probably not so easy as it might seem. There are a number of instances of elephants maddened by being hit with many missiles either becoming uncontrollable by the mahout or having to be killed by him. This would indicate that even when many missiles hit the elephant, they did not hit the mahout.

Also, the path of least resistance might have been to simply turn around or run to the flanks, as they so often did when uncontrolled. I think it is fairly clear that these elephants would not charge into the heads of the columns and followed their front around the corner and down the lanes like cavalry attacking a square. As someone mentioned above, the velites were retreating down the lanes, and elephants are truly hell on fleeing troops, so initially to the mahouts they may have simply been entering a pocket formed by "fleeing" velites.

[Quintus Sertorius]

I knew I'd get an answer from RAT!! Thanks guys - very interesting
Quintus
aka Guido Aston

[Eleatic Guest]

This was in stark contrast to the 255 BC battle at Tunes when the Roman commander did exactly the wrong thing and ammassed his troops to counter the beast's assault.

Regulus did nothing wrong in terms of his deployment against elephants. Polybios says as much. Where Regulus went wrong is that he was not only fighting a line of elephants and set himself up for envelopment.

Polybios Book 1, chapter 33:

"In thus making their whole line shorter and deeper than before they had been correct enough in so far as concerned the coming encounter with the elephants, but as to that with the cavalry, which largely outnumbered theirs, they were very wide of the mark. "

I relied on Glover's interpretation:

This same defeat of Regulus in 235 B.C. is the classic instance of how elephants should be used and how they should not be opposed, and it is curious that the man who realized how they should be handled was not a Carthaginian, but a newcomer to African warfare, the Spartan mercenary Xanthippus.16 On being given the command, he led the Carthaginian host down from the hills where they had avoided action and sought battle on the open plain. Regulus, on the other side, was worried by the elephants opposing him, and to meet them he massed his men in depth in two heavy columns. Now, it is correct enough to mass men together to resist a cavalry charge, for a horse will not charge home against a firm body of men armed with spears or fixed bayonets if the men have nerve and discipline enough to stand their ground, but a charging elephant is another matter.

Probably no arrangement could have pleased Xanthippus more. He deployed his ninety odd elephants in line before his men and opened the battle by ordering them to charge the Roman right, combining thereby shock and concentration-the mass use of the arm in one place at one time. When the elephants fell upon the wretched Roman soldiery, the latter's dense formation, if not their courage, made all flight impossible, and, says Polybius, "knocked down and trampled upon, they perished in heaps upon the field." Such Romans as came through the terrible line of elephants alive survived only to be spitted upon the pikes of the Carthaginian phalanx which the shrewd Spartan had placed a little to the rear. On the other wing the Roman left was doing well until they were swallowed up in the disaster to their right, and from the battle only two thousand Romans escaped; the effect of the defeat on their morale was almost equally crushing.

Richard Glover, The Elephant in Ancient War, The Classical Journal, 39, 5, 1944, 257-269 (259)

[PMBardunias]

I relied on Glover's interpretation

Glover, '44 and '48, is so fixated on the ability of elephants to charge into ranks of men that he is repeatedly stymied by what occurred in ancient battle. He puts forth the image of a mass of charging beasts plowing through enemy ranks, which leaves him bewildered that even in his best examples there is a large space, some 100', between elephants. He has no idea for, and denigrates, the positioning of elephants in small groups along a front.

Elephants have three main uses on ancient battlefields: causing terror in men and more importantly horses, as mobile firing platforms, to directly fight enemy troops. Glover dwells myopically on only the last, forgetting that some ranks get trampled only after breaking in fear or being broken by missiles from above. The use as mobile missile platform alone can be used to explain the spacing.

Ironically, many times the image of charging tanks is brought up to display the way elephants could cut through enemy formations, without realizing to true veracity of the analogy. Tanks don't run over enemy troops with their treads to break through their lines, one guy with a land mine could stop this, instead they act as mobile, semi-invulnerable, firing platforms.

[Eleatic Guest]

On the other hand, I have to say that the image of elephants of moving the front up and down waiting for "opportunities", that is loose ranks, appears not overly convincing, either, as this would expose the vulnerable side of the elephants to enemy missiles. And the pure size...it is scarcely thinkable that the largest fighting units on the battle field would be put to uses which are far more suitable to small, light and fast-moving troops. Thirdly, elephants were often put in Hellenistic times before the front line, which means they were expected to take the initiative and not wait till the battle comes to them.

Generally, I agree with you, however, that elephants wouldn't charge into intact lines as cavalry neither did, but for that purpose they were accompanied by light troops to soften up enemy formations.