Julius Caesar scares the Elephants of Numidia

Julius Caesar clamped his palms upon his ears, but the sound of elephants trumpeting in the distance continued unabated. Shrill and ominous, the din emanating from the enemy camp sent a chill down his spine. It would go on all night and the following day. If his enemies were trying to intimidate him on the eve of battle, they were indeed succeeding.

His officers and Centurions huddled about in small groups within his tent. He had asked for their counsel, but so far no one had uttered a sensible word. The men spoke in hasty whispers with each other while avoiding eye contact with him. 

He banged his fist on the table. “Silence!”  

Little wooden replicas of cavalry and infantry flew in all directions, some scattering upon the maps and scrolls that lay spread before him.

“Has anyone got a plan?” Caesar demanded. “Any way to deal with these fiends?” 

An embarrassed silence fell within the tent. Caesar felt a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

These elephants will be the death of us.

Courtesy of Pixabay_pgeyr

After a long silence, a Centurion stepped forward, cradling his plumed helmet in his arm. “I have lived in these parts as a child, O Caesar. My father trained bull elephants for the king’s army.”

Everyone craned their necks to listen to the Centurion.

“Well?”

“I remember him telling me as a child, there is an illness… no, a madness he had said, that overcomes elephants when they eat grain in which rot has set in. Maybe…”

“A madness, you say?” Caesar asked. 

A seed of a plan was forming inside his mind as he said those words. He did not hear the rest of the Centurion’s words as that seed sprouted rapidly, taking root and spreading its scheming branches inside. 

Observing the look of concentration in his eyes, the other men stiffened to attention. 

Still deep in thought, Caesar addressed the men at large. “Gather our best spies immediately and send them deep inside the enemy’s camp. They must find the fodder of the elephants—and burn it.” He looked directly at the Centurion. “The elephants should be kept hungry for this plan to succeed.”

... the year was 46 BC and Julius Caesar was ready to battle the Pompeian army at Thapsus, in Africa. Even though Pompey had been killed in Egypt two years ago, his followers stood true to their leader’s mission: to rid Rome of Caesar. The Romans, led by Scipio and Labienus, had joined forces with King Juba of the neighbouring Numidia, and together they challenged Caesar to war. King Juba harboured a long-standing grudge against Caesar. And he had brought sixty-four gigantic elephants from Numidia, all bred for war, mayhem and death.   

The next day, five legions loyal to Caesar assembled for battle, facing an enemy twice their strength. The Pompeians had stationed the elephants into two groups, each at the forefront of their flanks. The elephants were restless. They stomped their feet and flapped their ears, shrugging their fearsome heads from side to side while swinging their trunks. 

A loud toot blared from the Pompeian legions and a war-cry went up. That seemed to incite the elephants. They responded by trumpeting loudly, raising their trunks as they did. The spectacle was terrifying to behold.  

But instead of getting intimidated, Caesar felt a familiar tingle that he always experienced at the dawn of a cunning plan. 

“Wheel in the onagers,” he instructed a tribune. The officer turned his horse around without a word. Jerking the reins, he sliced through the ranks of assembled legionaries and guided his mount towards the rear.

Caesar could feel the tension in his legionaries. They faced a horde of gigantic pachyderms, and if they were lucky to survive that onslaught, they would have to face a much larger force of legionaries who were as well trained as themselves. It was a lesson in character building that his legionaries needed learning—to stand still in the face of enormous and unpredictable danger. 

There was a commotion occurring towards the rear of his legions. The onagers had been assembled—large catapults that had proven useful during sieges to demolish enemy fortifications by hurling boulders upon them. That day Caesar would not use rocks, but another projectile. 

He did not have to wait long. 

Swish! Swish! 

The onagers had begun to hurl. Several bulky objects soared above Caesar, heading in arching paths towards the Pompeians. Startled, some of his legionaries looked skywards to witness this new development. 

“The grain… it flies,” Caesar heard a legionary exclaim.

“Grain?” some other muddled voices mumbled.

Indeed, large bales of grain were in flight, heading directly towards the elephants. Caesar counted fifteen flying bales; seven towards the left flank and eight towards the right. He chanted silently.

Bales of grain full of rot. Stun the elephants as you ought. 

Accuracy was of paramount importance, and his catapult operators did not disappoint. As the bales landed, they struck the elephants squarely on their bodies. Some fell near their feet, others got deflected off those in the first row, making their way to the elephants assembled behind. Yet others struck the legionaries manning the elephants. 

Caesar laughed in an exaggerated manner at the confusion his ‘weapons’ were causing in the enemy ranks. His legionaries, understanding that a plan was afoot, joined in their commander’s joviality.

Scarcely had one barrage of projectiles fallen on their targets, when several more swishes filled the air. Another volley of grain was following in the wake of the first one. Again the bales fell neatly upon the parade of elephants. 

By then many elephants, hungry from the day before, began exploring the bales with their trunks, some even starting to gorge on the grain. Meanwhile, more and more bales of grain landed near the elephants to whet their appetite. The front line of the Pompeian legions resembled a field in the middle of a harvest. 

The Pompeian legionaries poked the elephants, urging them with their pili, but the elephants continued chomping upon the grain, hunger getting the better of their warring instincts. They were hardly to blame—food was falling from the skies.

It should take effect now… if that Centurion has spoken truthfully.

It happened almost instantaneously. An elephant in the left flank suddenly reared up, first striking its neighbour with its trunk and then charged directly at it, butting with its head. That enraged the other elephant. It stopped eating and retaliated, flapping its ears and trumpeting loudly. But it missed its tormentor, and instead crashed into another elephant. 

“They fight each other. The elephants…,” a legionary near Caesar exclaimed gleefully and cackled. 

Those nearby joined in the laughter.

Several small skirmishes had begun. The spectacle was more comical than terrifying. In the left flank, a pair of elephants had entangled their tusks, and were grappling with their trunks. And in the opposite flank, three elephants had taken it upon themselves to pummel a solitary one. 

By then a majority of the elephants had become enraged and others that were mellow, happy to eat the grain, were being goaded into aggression by the others.

But as the hilarities continued, the Pompeian legionaries regrouped, commanded by their Centurions. Rapidly creating walls with their shields, they pushed at the elephants, trying to segregate them. This human intervention infuriated the elephants. Refusing to be dominated, the proud beasts broke through the walls of shields, turning the shield-bearing legionaries into projectiles set upon haphazard trajectories. 

Once free of the offending shields, the elephants in the lead trumpeted in unison, as if sending a message to the rest of the parade. A hush fell upon both the groups of elephants. A semblance of organization was attained, as if by design, and then the pachyderms charged across the battle-field.

“The elephants—they attack,” another legionary near Caesar shouted.

“Don’t break your ranks,” Caesar yelled.

Raising gusts of dirt, the elephants ran towards Caesar’s waiting legions. It was a wild, uncoordinated stampede. The sight was nerve-racking. The elephants had no men to control them, their crazed instincts still under the sway of the rotten grain being their only guide.

A signal from Caesar, and the trumpet-bearer let out a prolonged toot.

Hundreds of fire-tipped arrows whizzed in the direction of the advancing elephants. As he had planned, the arrows landed neatly halfway between the warring legions. The ground immediately leapt into flames as the pitch his legionaries had splashed there the night before caught fire. 

The elephants were still at a distance from the flames. Trumpeting shrilly at the sight of fire, those in the front stumbled to a halt. They stood their ground as the entire parade came crashing upon them. Some tumbled over, but were none were scorched by fire. At first the entire group inched backwards. But the flames continued rising higher. Left with no choice, the elephants scrambled towards the safest escape route—back where they had come from.

“They are turning. They turn,” several excited voices rang out.

Seeing their pachyderms charging upon them, the Pompeian legions fell into disarray. Sixty-four elephants, scared out of their wits by the fire, still intoxicated by rotten grain, could no longer distinguish friend from foe. They mercilessly trampled the fleeing Pompeians that strayed into their path. 

The remaining legionaries fell into a disorderly retreat to protect themselves from the Numidian elephants. The bales of grain, having served their purpose, lay scattered across the battlefield, some flying unpredictably as the mad scramble of man and beast developed into a rout.

Caesar observed the pandemonium through the breaks in the fire-wall, thrilled to witness the havoc the elephants wreaked upon their masters. Once the majority of the Pompeian legions were trampled by the Numidian elephants, he set the final phase of his plan into motion.

At his command, the cavalry charged through the gaps in the fire, large enough to let horses through. They hunted the panic-stricken Pompeians, cutting them down before they could reach the safety of their camp. 

Multiple cheers of victory and celebration erupted from the Caesarian legions, as the Pompeian forces were rapidly thinned out and vanquished. 

Caesar was impressed by the discipline his legionaries had demonstrated by not breaking rank while under threat of approaching death. And now he had rewarded them by presenting a spectacle more breathtaking than the animal hunts back in Rome.

Turning an imminent defeat into victory was a skill that Julius Caesar had mastered during his many campaigns over the years. Leaning on that experience, at Thapsus he kept his wits together instead of giving way to panic, and was wise enough to seek counsel from those who served him. Indeed, it was Caesar’s cunning and meticulous planning that turned the enemy’s principal assets into weapons against them. 

While facing impossible odds, we must stop panic from clouding our perception and judgement. Moreover, we must not shy from taking counsel from others, because someone with different life experiences just might offer the solution to save the day.

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