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THE MYSTERY OF HANNIBAL'S ELEPHANTS

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: September 18, 1984

photo of Carthaginian coin

ARCHEOLOGISTS have tried. Students of ancient climate and ecology have tried, too. But no one has yet come up with a satisfactory answer: Where did Hannibal get the elephants for his heroic march across the Alps to attack the homeland of the Romans?

The question was raised anew in the Sept. 6 issue of New Scientist, a British magazine. Derek Ager, a geologist, wrote an article casting doubt on all of the proposed sources of Hannibal's elephants.

Once there were elephants nearly everywhere, but by the time of Hannibal's march in 218 B.C. they had already dwindled to the two species extant today, the Indian, or Asian, elephants and the African ones.

If he had had a choice, Hannibal would presumably have gone into battle with Indian elephants, which had been used effectively a century before in charging against the forces of Alexander the Great. Indian elephants are not quite as large as the African species but much more easily trained, which is why they are favored by zoos and circuses. It is also the reason Indian elephants are seen tramping through fictional Africa in old Tarzan movies.

The bigger and ill-tempered African elephants are distinguished by their larger, fan-shaped ears, flat foreheads and concave backs.

But how did Hannibal, in Carthage, on the Mediterranean in present-day Tunisia, get a troop of elephants all the way from Asia? Or from south of the Sahara, the bush habitat of the larger African species?

Elephants have a voracious appetite. Mr. Ager noted that an adult male African elephant eats some 400 pounds of vegetation a day. Even though the North African climate was slightly wetter then and the Sahara not quite so extensive, conditions were still not conducive to transporting hungry elephants.

Historians speculate that a few small elephants could have been brought down the Nile Valley into Egypt, or by the Red Sea, and then bred in captivity, but there is apparently no record of this. Nor is there any record of the large African species being indigenous to North Africa in the time of Hannibal. Drawings of elephants appear on the Tassili Frescoes in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria, but a recent British expedition determined that the drawings predated Hannibal.

Many historians believe a likely source of Hannibal's elephants could have been the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria. Living there at the time was a forest subspecies of the African elephants. These were smaller animals, standing about 8 feet tall at the shoulders in contrast to the 11-foot-tall sub-Saharan animals. The Atlas elephants later died out as the region grew increasingly arid.

Presumably these animals would have been just as difficult to train and would have been less imposing in warfare. In ancient military campaigns elephants hauled supplies and served somewhat the same function as modern tanks.

In his 1955 study, ''Alps and Elephants,'' Gavin de Beer, who was director of the British Museum of Natural History, wrote, ''Not only did the elephants' appearance, their smell, and the noise of their trumpeting alarm both men and horses opposed to them, but they were highly dangerous when charged, fighting with their tusks and their trunks and trampling down their opponents.''

For these reasons, commenting on the small Atlas elephants, Mr. Ager said, ''I find the idea of Hannibal's using small elephants unsatisfying.''

By most accounts Hannibal's invasion force in 218 B.C., assembled in Spain, included 100,000 men and 37 or 38 elephants. Mr. Ager notwithstanding, many historians tend to accept Mr. De Beer's conclusion that most of these elephants were African, either from the Atlas Mountains or from south of the desert.

The evidence is a Carthaginian coin, struck in the time of Hannibal, that bears an unmistakable image of an African elephant. Coins are often valuable to archeologists, and here it is about all historians have - a coin and a story told after the Second Punic War. Hannibal dealt the Romans under Scipio several crushing defeats but ultimately failed to seize Rome itself.

Only one of the elephants survived the war, it seems. This was the elephant Hannibal himself had often ridden. Its name, according to the story, was Surus, meaning ''the Syrian.'' Because the Ptolemies of Egypt, successors to Alexander, were known to have seized some Indian elephants as booty in their campaigns in Syria, it seemed likely that some descendants of those elephants had found their way to Carthage. Egypt and Carthage enjoyed good relations in those days. Mr. De Beer, citing the story of Surus, concluded, ''It is therefore almost certain that Hannibal's elephants included at least one Indian.''

ARCHEOLOGISTS have tried. Students of ancient climate and ecology have tried, too. But no one has yet come up with a satisfactory answer: Where did Hannibal get the elephants for his heroic march across the Alps to attack the homeland of the Romans?

The question was raised anew in the Sept. 6 issue of New Scientist, a British magazine. Derek Ager, a geologist, wrote an article casting doubt on all of the proposed sources of Hannibal's elephants.

Once there were elephants nearly everywhere, but by the time of Hannibal's march in 218 B.C. they had already dwindled to the two species extant today, the Indian, or Asian, elephants and the African ones.

If he had had a choice, Hannibal would presumably have gone into battle with Indian elephants, which had been used effectively a century before in charging against the forces of Alexander the Great. Indian elephants are not quite as large as the African species but much more easily trained, which is why they are favored by zoos and circuses. It is also the reason Indian elephants are seen tramping through fictional Africa in old Tarzan movies.

The bigger and ill-tempered African elephants are distinguished by their larger, fan-shaped ears, flat foreheads and concave backs.

But how did Hannibal, in Carthage, on the Mediterranean in present-day Tunisia, get a troop of elephants all the way from Asia? Or from south of the Sahara, the bush habitat of the larger African species?

Elephants have a voracious appetite. Mr. Ager noted that an adult male African elephant eats some 400 pounds of vegetation a day. Even though the North African climate was slightly wetter then and the Sahara not quite so extensive, conditions were still not conducive to transporting hungry elephants.

Historians speculate that a few small elephants could have been brought down the Nile Valley into Egypt, or by the Red Sea, and then bred in captivity, but there is apparently no record of this. Nor is there any record of the large African species being indigenous to North Africa in the time of Hannibal. Drawings of elephants appear on the Tassili Frescoes in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria, but a recent British expedition determined that the drawings predated Hannibal.

Many historians believe a likely source of Hannibal's elephants could have been the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria. Living there at the time was a forest subspecies of the African elephants. These were smaller animals, standing about 8 feet tall at the shoulders in contrast to the 11-foot-tall sub-Saharan animals. The Atlas elephants later died out as the region grew increasingly arid.

Presumably these animals would have been just as difficult to train and would have been less imposing in warfare. In ancient military campaigns elephants hauled supplies and served somewhat the same function as modern tanks.

In his 1955 study, ''Alps and Elephants,'' Gavin de Beer, who was director of the British Museum of Natural History, wrote, ''Not only did the elephants' appearance, their smell, and the noise of their trumpeting alarm both men and horses opposed to them, but they were highly dangerous when charged, fighting with their tusks and their trunks and trampling down their opponents.''

For these reasons, commenting on the small Atlas elephants, Mr. Ager said, ''I find the idea of Hannibal's using small elephants unsatisfying.''

By most accounts Hannibal's invasion force in 218 B.C., assembled in Spain, included 100,000 men and 37 or 38 elephants. Mr. Ager notwithstanding, many historians tend to accept Mr. De Beer's conclusion that most of these elephants were African, either from the Atlas Mountains or from south of the desert.

The evidence is a Carthaginian coin, struck in the time of Hannibal, that bears an unmistakable image of an African elephant. Coins are often valuable to archeologists, and here it is about all historians have - a coin and a story told after the Second Punic War. Hannibal dealt the Romans under Scipio several crushing defeats but ultimately failed to seize Rome itself.

Only one of the elephants survived the war, it seems. This was the elephant Hannibal himself had often ridden. Its name, according to the story, was Surus, meaning ''the Syrian.'' Because the Ptolemies of Egypt, successors to Alexander, were known to have seized some Indian elephants as booty in their campaigns in Syria, it seemed likely that some descendants of those elephants had found their way to Carthage. Egypt and Carthage enjoyed good relations in those days. Mr. De Beer, citing the story of Surus, concluded, ''It is therefore almost certain that Hannibal's elephants included at least one Indian.''

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