In some of these wars, it often happened that the African elephant was marched against its Asiatic ally. This was the case in the battle of Magnesia, when the Roman arms were turned against Antiochus, king of Syria; and, according to the old writers, the African elephants of Scipio were much inferior in size and strength to the Indian ones of Antiochus. The reverse, at least regarding size, is true to-day; and the same was probably true then, African male elephants being at least a foot taller than their Asiatic cousins. When Scipio found that his elephants were inferior, he placed them in his rear as a reserve; but they were routed, only fifteen escaping: while fifteen thousand men were slain. The Romans utterly defeated them, and insisted upon the same terms which we have seen the Carthaginians made,—Antiochus agreeing to deliver all his war elephants to Rome, and to train no more. If both parties had kept their word, the elephant would have fallen into disuse as a war-factor. The Romans exacted a similar bond from Jugurtha (111 B.C.); killing large numbers, and continuing the war until the Numidian king consented, and delivered his elephants to Metellus (108 B.C.). Julius Cæsar probably considered that elephants retarded active movements, and did not have a large corps of them; though a certain number were kept, presumably to re-assure the soldiers, in case the enemy should be supplied with an elephant corps. In his battle with Scipio in Africa, he was confronted with thirty of these animals, having towers of archers; but he sent his elephants to the rear, and succeeded in defeating his enemy. Some idea of the manner in which elephants fought in battle is given by Cæsar:— “A wounded elephant, furious with rage, attacked an unarmed follower of the troops, and, kneeling upon him, crushed the life out of his body. A veteran of the fifth legion rushed forward to attack the beast, who was roaring, and lashing with his proboscis. The elephant immediately forsook his victim, and, catching up the soldier in his trunk, whirled him in the air. But the intrepid warrior did not lose his presence of mind: he wounded the elephant in his sensitive proboscis, till, exhausted with pain, he dropped the soldier, and fled in terror to his companions.” The elephant was probably not used to any extent in war by the Romans, after the establishment of the imperial government. In A.D. 193, we read that Rome was filled with horses and elephants, ready for use in the proposed war between Didius Julianus and Septimius Severus. In the famous battle between Alexander Severus and Artaxerxes (A.D. 230), three hundred elephants were taken from the Persians, and a number marched to Rome in solemn state. The introduction of new appliances of war, and the successful attempts in routing bodies of elephants, probably did much to render them unpopular, for a time at least, among the Roman conquerors. CHAPTER XXV. PROBOSCIDIAN FICTIONS.