| 265 | 265 | * '''History:''' The North African elephant was trained for war and used by the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. Writing in the 2nd century BC, Polybius (The Histories; 5.83) described their inferiority in battle against the larger Indian elephants used by the Seleucid kings. A surviving Ptolemaic inscription enumerates three types of war elephant, the "Troglodytic" (probably Libyan), the "Ethiopian", and the "Indian". The Ptolemaic king prides himself with being the first to tame the Ethiopian elephants, a stock which could be identical to one of the two extant African species. (source: Wikipedia) |
