Alexander the Great versus the Elephants

> At Bagradas (255 B.C. – a rare Carthaginian victory on land in the First Punic War) [...] the elephants disorder the Roman line. In the spaces between the elephants, the Romans slipped through, but encountered a Carthaginian phalanx still in good order advancing a safe distance behind the elephants and were cut down by the infantry, while those caught in front of the elephants were encircled and routed by the Carthaginian cavalry. What the elephants accomplished was throwing out the Roman fighting formation, leaving the Roman infantry confused and vulnerable to the other arms of the Carthaginian army.

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> Elephants could also be used as area denial weapons. One reading of the (admittedly somewhat poor) evidence suggests that this is how Pyrrhus of Epirus used his elephants – to great effect – against the Romans. It is sometimes argued that Pyrrhus essentially created an ‘articulated phalanx’ using lighter infantry and elephants to cover gaps – effectively joints – in his main heavy pike phalanx line. This allowed his phalanx – normally a relatively inflexible formation – to pivot.

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> Thus the war elephant wasn’t a ‘battle winner’ so much as a dangerous complication thrown in the way of the enemy’s plan of attack. And at that, they were awesome.

Lists a few. My guess is that they served more to strike fear into the hearts of ememies rather than actually being effective.

The Tamil phrase ரத, கஜ, துரக, பதாதிகள் refers to Chariots, Elephants, Cavalry, Infantry respectively and is used in several fictional descriptions of antique battlefields. The historical fiction novel, Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki (written in mid 20th century) about the Chola dynasty (circa 3rd century BCE to 13th century CE) has this exact phrase appearing in Volume 1, Chapter 19.

> காத தூரத்துக்குக் காததூரம் ரணகளம் பரவியிருந்தது. ரத, கஜ, துரக, பதாதிகள் என்னும் நாலுவகைப் படைகளும் போரில் ஈடுபட்டிருந்தன

(trans: The bloody battlefield was spread out over four square miles. Chariots, Elephants, Cavalry, Infantry--all four forces were fighting the battle)

In Tamil classical literature, there is a verse form called பரணி (Parani). The literal meaning of this verse form is:

> ஆனை ஆயிரம் அமரிடை வென்ற மானவனுக்கு வகுப்பது பரணி.(இலக்.வி. 839)

i.e., A song in praise of a warrior who fought and won a thousand elephants in battle.

There is a 12th century poem titled கலிங்கத்துப்பரணி (Kalinga's Parani/Verse) written by செயங்கொண்டார் (Jeyamkondaar). It was customary to give the name of the defeated as the title of the verse. This one was the defeat of the Kalinga ruler Anantavarman by the Chola king Kulothunka Chola. Hence the name.

This poem also mentions war elephants.

References:

கலிங்கத்துப்பரணி: https://ta.wikipedia.org/s/62z

ரத கஜ துரக பதாதிகள்: https://ta.wiktionary.org/s/twc

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ipsus

I never would have thought that lions were native to Africa north of the Sahara and even in Greece.