then, forthwith, marched with all force against the Assyrians; Semiramis, on the other hand, doing the like. When they approached near one to another, Stabrobates, the Indian king, placed his horse and chariots in the vanguard, at a good distance before the main body of his army. The queen, having placed her mock-elephants at the like distance from her main body, valiantly received her enemy’s charge: but the Indian horse were most strangely terrified; for in regard, the phantasms at a distance seemed to be real elephants, the horses of the Indians (being inured to these creatures) pressed boldly and undauntedly forward; but when they came near, and saw another sort of beast than usual, and the smell and every thing else almost being strange and new to them, they broke in with great terror and confusion, one upon another, so that they cast some of their riders headlong to the ground, and ran away with others (as the lot happened) into the midst of their enemies; whereupon Semiramis, readily making use of her advantage, with a body of choice men, fell in upon them, and routed them, forcing them back to their main body: and though Stabrobates was something astonished at this unexpected defeat, yet he brought up his foot against the enemy, with his elephants in the front; he himself was in the right wing, mounted upon a stately elephant, and made a fierce charge upon the queen herself, who happened then to be opposite to him in the left. And though the mock-elephants in Semiramis’s army did the like, yet they stood the violent shock of the other but a little while: for the Indian beasts, being both exceeding strong and stout, easily bore down and destroyed all that opposed them, so that there was a great slaughter; for some they trampled under foot, others they rent in pieces with their teeth, and tossed up others with their trunks into the air. The ground, therefore, being covered with heaps of dead carcasses, and nothing but death and destruction to be seen on every hand, so that all were full of horror and amazement, none durst keep their order or ranks any longer. Upon which the whole Assyrian army fled outright: and the Indian king encountered with Semiramis, and first wounded her with an arrow in the arm, and afterwards with a dart (in wheeling about) in the shoulder; whereupon the queen (her wounds not being mortal) fled, and by the swiftness of her horse (which far exceeded the other that pursued her), she got off.”