Thursday, January 30, 2025

In the turn-based strategy video game Sid Meier's Civilization II, the Elephant replaced the Chariot. Well, I've wondered this since playing that game: Have there ever been chariots pulled by elephants?

 

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In the turn-based strategy video game Sid Meier's Civilization II, the Elephant replaced the Chariot. Well, I've wondered this since playing that game: Have there ever been chariots pulled by elephants?

Question

AKA, have there ever been "chariotephants" - teams of elephants pulling chariots? Could any ancient elephant handler ever have successfully mounted an elephant in front of a chariot to pull them?

I'm guessing a "chariotephant" was no more than a neologism that I developed back when I first played this game in middle school...

 

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[–]Realistic-Safety-565 1 point  

It overkill. In times when generals had little control over armies, once deployed the role of general was to look heroic, and armies were motivated by person of king / general rather than professionalism, the role of chariot and elephant was pretty much the same: make the rider stand out, and make him look awesome and inspiring. The destructive power of either was secondary at best.

A good article on the subject:

https://acoup.blog/2019/07/26/collections-war-elephants-part-i-battle-pachyderms/

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