Surus was believed to be the last

war elephant A war elephant is an elephant that is Animal training, trained and guided by humans for combat purposes. Historically, the war elephant's main use was to charge (warfare), charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elep ...

Carthaginian The term Carthaginian ( ) usually refers to the civilisation of ancient Carthage. It may also refer to: * Punic people, the Semitic-speaking people of Carthage * Punic language The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, i ...

general

Hannibal Hannibal (; ; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Punic people, Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Ancient Carthage, Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. Hannibal's fat ...

's army in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

History

Several

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

writers give accounts of Surus, a large elephant with a

tusk Tusks are elongated, continuously growing front teeth that protrude well beyond the mouth of certain mammal species. They are most commonly canine tooth, canine teeth, as with Narwhal, narwhals, chevrotains, musk deer, water deer, muntjac, pigs, ...

broken. According to

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

, Surus wore a red cloth, and may also have carried a red shield and a

howdah A howdah or houdah (, derived from the Arabic 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 ...

(a construction on the animal's back), which served as a platform for Hannibal, who had difficulties overlooking the battlefield after losing one eye from an infection. According to some accounts, the animal was the last of the 37 war elephants Hannibal took with him on his 218 BC crossing of the Alps, during the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For ...

. Although a Carthaginian coin struck in the time of Hannibal depicts a

North African elephant The North African elephant (''Loxodonta africana pharaohensis'') is an extinct subspecies of the African bush elephant (''Loxodonta africana''), or possibly a separate elephant species, that existed in North Africa, north of the Sahara, until it ...

, historians believe Surus was a Western Asiatic or

Syrian elephant The Syrian or Western Asiatic elephant (sometimes given the subspecies designation ''Elephas maximus asurus'') was the westernmost population of the Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), which went extinct in ancient times, with early human civil ...

descended from those seized by the Ptolemies of Egypt in the

Syrian Wars The Syrian Wars were a series of six wars between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, successor states to Alexander the Great's empire, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC over the region then called Coele-Syria, one of ...

, as its name, "Surus", would translate as "The Syrian". However, others have proposed it was a North African elephant like the rest of animals used by Carthage, interpreting the name as a nickname Romans would have given it for its broken tusk (''surus'' or '' sudus'' being the name for a stake used in fortifications).Ido Yahalom, ''The Carthaginian Elephants and their Handlers: Only African Forest Elephants and Local Personnel'', 2018, Folia Phoenicia

History

See also

References

Further reading