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Hannibal's Elephants and the Crossing of the Rhône

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

S. O'bryhim
S. O'bryhim
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

Hannibal's trek through western Europe has fascinated ancient and modern historians alike. Although most attention has been focused on determining his route through the Alps, a less popular question, the site of his Rhône crossing, has been by no means neglected. Many scholars have offered differing solutions to this problem, but all agree on one point: that Hannibal transported his elephants across the Rhône by raft. No doubt this consensus stems from the fact that both Polybius and Livy, who give almost identical versions of the crossing, agree on this mode of transport. But an analysis of their accounts will show that the use of rafts was neither necessary nor desirable and that a more likely method is contained in an alternative version that Livy records, then rejects in favour of Polybius' account.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , May 1991 , pp. 121 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 They have a matriarchal organization in which a dominant female leads the entire herd, while subordinate females lead its subdivisions. The males follow in the train of the herd and function mainly as sires. See Sikes, S., The Natural History of the African Elephant (New York, 1971), pp. 260–5.Google Scholar

2 The same method is still used today for loading elephants onto rafts for long river journeys. See Williams, J. H., Elephant Bill (Garden City, 1950), pp. 116–17.Google Scholar

3 Pliny, H.N. 8.1.

4 Scullard, H. H., The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (Ithaca, 1974), p. 22Google Scholar, Aristotle, , De Partibus Animalium 659a 13–15Google Scholar, and Sikes, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 69.

5 Elephants exhibit this behaviour when they are required to cross a river that is in flood. See R. Kipling's In Flood Time. The Rhône floods in the spring and, to a greater extent, in the autumn. According to D. Proctor's calculations, Hannibal's March in History (Oxford, 1971), pp. 36, 58Google Scholar, Hannibal arrived at the Rhône at the end of September. See Livy 21.27.8 and Polybius 3.43.3 for the swiftness of the current.

6 Williams, op. cit. (n. 2), pp. 139–52. This is especially true in the case of the African elephant. See Sikes, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 16. Although Polybius referred to their drivers as Indoi (3.46.7), this had become a generic term and did not imply that the elephants or their drivers were Asian. See Scullard, op. cit. (n. 4), p. 131. As Scullard indicates, ibid., pp. 62–3, Hannibal was probably using the North African Forest elephant as opposed to the larger Bush elephant.

7 Sikes, op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 282–3 and Pliny, H.N. 8.34.

8 Carrington, R., Elephants: a Short History of Their Natural History, Evolution, and Influence on Mankind (New York, 1959), pp. 63–4Google Scholar and Scullard, op. cit. (n. 4), p. 21.

9 Two females (Polybius 3.46.7) and three others (Livy 21.28.8).

10 Polybius 3.42.11.

11 For an attempt to work out the technical aspects of this version of the crossing, see Philipp, J., ‘Wie hat Hannibal die Elefanten über die Rhone gesetzt’, Klio 11 (1911), 343–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Contra, Walbank, F., Historical Commentary on Polybius (Oxford, 1957), i. 379–80.Google Scholar

12 Pliny, H.N. 8.3.

13 Williams, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 116 and the plate facing p. 11.

14 Scullard, op. cit. (n. 4), pp. 146–7.

15 For ancient sources on elephants, see Scullard, op. cit. (n. 4), pp. 32–63.

16 De Partibus Animalium 659a 13–15 and Historia Animalium 630b 25–30.

17 Historia Animalium 630b 25–30. Contra, see Nearchus, quoted at Strabo 15.1.43. Pliny, H.N. (8.28), who transmits the same information as Aristotle, propagated this error which is still current in modern times. See Sikes, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 273, who cites as an example Bourliere, F., The Natural History of Mammals (New York, 1964), p. 21.Google Scholar

18 Although he refers to Aristotle several times, it is unclear whether Polybius derived his information directly from his writings or through an intermediary. See Walbank, F., Polybius (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 32–3 n. 3.Google Scholar

19 Sikes, op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 273–4, states that elephants have been seen swimming very deep African rivers such as the lower Zambesi, Nile, Ubangi–Chari and in Lake Chad. See also Williams, J. H., Big Charlie (London, 1959), pp. 36–7Google Scholar and Elephant Bill, p. 95, Job 40:23, Sikes, ibid., pp. 331–4, Williams, H., Sacred Elephant (New York, 1989), pp. 20, 83–5Google Scholar, and Johnson, D., ‘Problems in the Land Vertebrate Zoogeography of Certain Islands and the Swimming Powers of Elephants’, Journal of Biogeography 7 (1980), 383–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Williams, , Elephant Bill, pp. 94–5, 115–16Google Scholar, reports on the elephant's ability to hold its breath underwater and gives an account of an elephant's 12-year, 200-mile island-hopping journey in the Bay of Bengal.

21 Sanderson, G., The Wild Beasts of India (Delhi, 1983 reprint of the 1878 edition), pp. 51–2.Google Scholar

22 de Beer, G., Hannibal's March (London, 1967), p. 51.Google Scholar

23 For elephants positioned in a line across the Nile to break the current, see Diodorus 18.35.1. The Rhône's average annual discharge is 60 cubic feet per second, while that of the Nile is 110. Gresswell, R. and Huxley, A., Standard Encyclopedia of the World's Rivers and Lakes (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

24 Polybius 3.46.12 and Livy 21.28.12.

25 Strategemata 1, preface.

26 Cf. Walsh, P., Livy: his Historical Aims and Methods (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 173–218Google Scholar, for Livy's tendency to sacrifice strict accuracy to dramatic possibilities.

27 Zonaras 8.14, Frontinus, Strategemata 1.7.1, and Pliny, H.N. 8.6.

28 For historians of the Second Punic War, see Walbank, , Historical Commentary on Polybius, i.28–9Google Scholar, Meyer, E., Kleine Schriften (Halle, 1924), ii.338–40Google Scholar, and U. Kahrstedt, vol. 3 of Meltzer's, O.Geschichte der Karthager (Berlin, 1913).Google Scholar

29 Walsh, op. cit. (n. 26), pp. 124–32, Kahrstedt, op. cit. (n. 28), pp. 360–2, and Livy 21.38, 46, 47, 22.31, 23.6, 27.27, 28.46, 29.25, 29.27, 35.

30 Cicero, De Divinatione 1.24.49 and Cornelius Nepos, Hannibal 13.3. See also Livy 26.49.3.

31 For Sosylos, see Cornelius Nepos, Hannibal 13.3. U. Kahrstedt, op. cit. (n. 28), pp. 163–4, 180 n. 2, believes that Coelius is the source of the Polybian/Livian version because he accepts this as the true method of crossing.

32 I would like to thank M. Gwyn Morgan and the anonymous referee for their valuable suggestions. Any errors are my own.