Pyrrhus of Epirus - War Elephants - Rome

>Carthage
>stories of Seleucid/Ptolemy wars

I think so.

>>2536115
I'm aware of no source indicating they faced them on the field of battle. They were, however, in the Greek cultural sphere, so they had probably heard stories from things like Alexander's expedition to India.

>>2536115
They probably knew about them but never would've faced them since only the Carthaginians would've had them nearby and they never fought them at this point. Also the common Roman soldier who wasn't of patrician birth and better educated in global stuff probably had no idea what they were and thought they were monsters.

>>2536160
I do think that during antiquity elephants inhabited parts of Syria and North Africa.

>>2536154
The Punic wars started after the Pyrrhic war, and IIRC elephants weren't even used by Carthage against Rome until the Second Punic War - about a half a century after Pyrrhus' war.

>>2536196
>I do think that during antiquity elephants inhabited parts of Syria and North Africa
You're right - there were subspecies of elephant in both North Africa and Syria. The Syrian elephants were more closely related to Indian ones, but they went extinct around the time of the Second Punic War. The North African elephants that Carthage used were actually fairly small. They were considered inferior to the Indian ones used by the Selucids, and were supposedly the same size as the smaller subspecies of African elephant.

>>2536115
I wish Pyrrhus won

>>2536361
But he did. Until it was silly to continue.

>>2536367
So that's what "Pyrrhic Victory" means?

>>2536421
Anon, are ok ?

>>2536435
Don't worry, it was an attempt at a joke ^^