War pig

Last updated

War pigs are pigs reported to have been used in ancient warfare as military animals. In combat, they were mostly employed as a countermeasure against war elephants.

Contents

Historical accounts of incendiary pigs or flaming pigs were recorded by the Greek military writer Polyaenus [1] and by Aelian. [2] Both writers reported that Antigonus II Gonatas' siege of Megara in 266 BC was broken when the Megarians doused some pigs with combustible pitch, crude oil or resin, set them alight, and drove them towards the enemy's massed war elephants. The elephants bolted in terror from the flaming, squealing pigs, often killing great numbers of their own soldiers by trampling them to death. [3] [4] According to an account, Gonatas later made his mahouts keep a swine among elephants to accustom the animals to pigs and this practice was immortalized by a Roman bronze coin dating back to his time, which showed an elephant on one side and a pig on the other. [5]

History

In the 1st century BC, the Roman author Lucretius [6] noted that humans may have attempted to launch wild beasts, such as lions or "savage boars", against the enemy, but with catastrophic results. In 272 BC, it was recorded that the Romans used wild boars in their fight against the war elephants of the Tarantines. [7] According to a legend recounted in the "Alexander Romance" by Pseudo-Callisthenes, [8] the Macedonian Emperor Alexander the Great learned about this "secret weapon" against war elephants from King Porus in India. [9]

The Roman naval and army commander Pliny the Elder reported that "elephants are scared by the smallest squeal of the hog". [10] Roman author and teacher Aelian [11] confirmed that elephants were frightened by squealing pigs and rams with horns, and reported that the Romans exploited both squealing pigs and horned rams to repel the war elephants of Pyrrhus in 275 BC. Byzantine Greek scholar Procopius, in History of the Wars, [12] recorded that the defenders of Edessa suspended a squealing pig from the walls to frighten away Khosrau's single siege elephant in the 6th century AD. [13]

As late as the 16th century, the supposed terror of the elephant for the squealing pig was reported by the English politician Reginald Scot. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erymanthian boar</span> Mythological boar

In Greek mythology, the Erymanthian boar was a mythical creature that took the form of a "shaggy and wild" "tameless" "boar" "of vast weight" "and foaming jaws". It was a Tegeaean, Maenalusian or Erymanthian boar that lived in the "glens of Lampeia" beside the "vast marsh of Erymanthus". It would sally from the "thick-wooded", "cypress-bearing" "heights of Erymanthus" to "harry the groves of Arcady" and "abuse the land of Psophis".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lernaean Hydra</span> Snake-monster in Greek and Roman mythology

The Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna, more often known simply as the Hydra, is a serpentine lake monster in Greek mythology and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, which was also the site of the myth of the Danaïdes. Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld, and archaeology has established it as a sacred site older than Mycenaean Argos. In the canonical Hydra myth, the monster is killed by Heracles (Hercules) as the second of his Twelve Labors.

Callisthenes of Olynthus was a Greek historian in Macedon with connections to both Aristotle and Alexander the Great. He accompanied Alexander the Great during his Asiatic expedition and served as his historian and publicist. He later opposed Alexander’s adoption of Persian culture and was arrested after being implicated in a plot on the king's life; he died in prison. During his life, he authored several works on Greek history and a biography of Alexander the Great.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pyrrhus of Epirus</span> King of Epirus from 297 to 272 BC

Pyrrhus was a Greek king and statesman of the Hellenistic period. He was king of the Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house, and later he became king of Epirus. He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome, and had been regarded as one of the greatest generals of antiquity. Several of his victorious battles caused him unacceptably heavy losses, from which the term "Pyrrhic victory" was coined.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War elephant</span> Elephant trained and guided by humans for combat

A war elephant was an elephant that was trained and guided by humans for combat. The war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant-mounted troops.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hellenistic-era warships</span> Oared warships

From the 4th century BC on, new types of oared warships appeared in the Mediterranean Sea, superseding the trireme and transforming naval warfare. Ships became increasingly large and heavy, including some of the largest wooden ships hitherto constructed. These developments were spearheaded in the Hellenistic Near East, but also to a large extent shared by the naval powers of the Western Mediterranean, specifically Carthage and the Roman Republic. While the wealthy successor kingdoms in the East built huge warships ("polyremes"), Carthage and Rome, in the intense naval antagonism during the Punic Wars, relied mostly on medium-sized vessels. At the same time, smaller naval powers employed an array of small and fast craft, which were also used by the ubiquitous pirates. Following the establishment of complete Roman hegemony in the Mediterranean after the Battle of Actium, the nascent Roman Empire faced no major naval threats. In the 1st century AD, the larger warships were retained only as flagships and were gradually supplanted by the light liburnians until, by Late Antiquity, the knowledge of their construction had been lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military animal</span> Trained animal used for warfare or other military applications

Military animals are trained animals that are used in warfare and other combat related activities. As working animals, different military animals serve different functions. Horses, elephants, camels, and other animals have been used for both transportation and mounted attack. Pigeons were used for communication and photographic espionage. Many other animals have been reportedly used in various specialized military functions, including rats and pigs. Dogs have long been employed in a wide variety of military purposes, more recently focusing on guarding and bomb detection, and along with dolphins and sea lions are in active use today.

Lysimachia was an important Hellenistic Greek town on the north-western extremity of the Thracian Chersonese in the neck where the peninsula joins the mainland in what is now the European part of Turkey, not far from the bay of Melas. It is located near the modern village of Bolayır, not at Hexamili as previously thought.

Cynane was half-sister to Alexander the Great, and daughter of Philip II by Audata, an Illyrian princess. She is estimated to have been born in 357 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howdah</span> Carriage placed on the back of an elephant, camel, or other animal

A howdah, or houdah, derived from the Arabic هودج, which means "bed carried by a camel", also known as hathi howdah, is a carriage which is positioned on the back of an elephant, or occasionally some other animal such as a camel, used most often in the past to carry wealthy people during progresses or processions, hunting or in warfare. It was also a symbol of wealth for the owner and as a result might be elaborately decorated, even with expensive gemstones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Griffin</span> Legendary animal

The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle with its talons on the front legs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kandake</span> Title of queenmothers in ancient Nubia

Kandake, kadake or kentake, often Latinised as Candace, was the Meroitic term for the sister of the king of Kush who, due to the matrilineal succession, would bear the next heir, making her a queen mother. She had her own court, probably acted as a landholder and held a prominent secular role as regent. Contemporary Greek and Roman sources treated it, incorrectly, as a name. The name Candace is derived from the way the word is used in the New Testament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in ancient warfare</span> Aspect of womens history

The role of women in ancient warfare differed from culture to culture. There have been various historical accounts of females participating in battle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aleuadae</span>

The Aleuadae were an ancient Thessalian family of Larissa, who claimed descent from the mythical Aleuas (Ἀλεύας). The Aleuadae were the noblest and most powerful among all the families of Thessaly, whence Herodotus calls its members "rulers" or "kings" (βασιλεῖς).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leaena</span> Hetaera (0600-0500)

Leaena is a pseudo-historical figure, supposedly a hetaera and, according to a later tradition, the mistress of Aristogeiton the Tyrannicide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boar hunting</span> Hunting for wild boar or feral pigs

Boar hunting is the practice of hunting wild boar, feral pigs, warthogs, and peccaries. Boar hunting was historically a dangerous exercise due to the tusked animal's ambush tactics as well as its thick hide and dense bones rendering them difficult to kill with premodern weapons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persian war elephants</span>

War elephants were used in Iranian military history, most notably in Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Sasanian periods. These were Asian elephants recruited from the southern provinces of Iran and India, but also possibly Syrian elephants from Syria and western Iran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Greece–Ancient India relations</span> Relations between ancient Greece and India

For the ancient Greeks, “India" referred to the polity situated east of Persia and south of the Himalayas. Although, during different periods of history, "India" referred to a much wider or much less extensive place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bears in antiquity</span>

Bears in antiquity had natural observations recorded about them from as the early as Classical Greece, and were part of most natural histories that followed. One knows from Pausanias that bears roamed ancient Greece, and archaeological evidence found such as bear teeth attest to his witness. Natural Histories that studied bears were recorded by Aristotle, Aelian, Pliny and Oppian and were probably based on their first hand accounts or the testimony of hunters. Bears came to represent a state between wild and tame, and were represented as such in cultural appropriations. The image of the bear was also commercialised in trade, as were its body parts.

Pordoselene or Poroselene (Ποροσελήνη) was a town and polis (city-state) of ancient Aeolis. It was located on the chief island of the Hecatonnesi, a group of small islands lying between Lesbos and the coast of Asia Minor, which was also called Prodoselene. Strabo says that some, in order to avoid the dirty allusion presented by this name, as pordos means fart in Greek, called it Poroselene, which is the form employed by Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder, and Aelian. At a still later time the name was changed into Proselene, under which form the town appears as a bishop's see. Aristotle mentions the town in his History of Animals where it was on the extremity of a road that formed the border between an area of the island that contained weasels and another area that did not have them.

References

  1. Polyaenus, "Stratagems" 4.6.3
  2. Aelian, "On Animals" 16.36
  3. Harden, A. (2013). Animals in the Classical World: Ethical Perspectives from Greek and Roman Texts. Springer. p. 139. ISBN   9781137319319.
  4. Mayor, Adrienne (2014). "Chapter 17: Animals in Warfare". In Campbell, Gordon Lindsay (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford University Press. pp. 292–293. ISBN   9780191035159.
  5. Kistler, John (2007). War Elephants. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 90. ISBN   9780803260047.
  6. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5.1298–1349
  7. Alves, Romulo; Albuquerque, Ulysses (2017). Ethnozoology: Animals in Our Lives. London: Academic Press. p. 329. ISBN   9780128099131.
  8. Pseudo-Callisthenes, "Letter to Aristotle" 12
  9. Mayor 2005; Kistler 2007
  10. Pliny the Elder, "Natural History" 8.9.27
  11. Aelian, "On Animals" 1.38
  12. Procopius, "History of the Wars" 8.14.30–43
  13. Nossov, Konstantin (2012). War Elephants. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. p. 43. ISBN   9781846038037.
  14. Petersson, R. T. (1956). Sir Kenelm Digby . Harvard University Press.

Bibliography