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During these wars Seleucid ruler Antiochus III the Great fought against Ptolemy IV Philopator the fourth ruler of the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt
but Ptolemy didn't. Instead he set up outposts in what is now modern-day Eritrea to get African elephants.
Ptolemy however was able to recover due to missteps by Antiochus and eventually won the battle.
African elephants In reality Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants so some historians speculated that perhaps the Ptolemies were using African forest elephants
The Battle took place in 217 B c. between Ptolemy IV the King of Egypt and Antiochus III the Great the King of the Seleucid kingdom that reached from modern-day Turkey to Pakistan.
According to historical records Antiochus's ancestor traded vast areas of land for 500 Asian elephants whereas Ptolemy established trading posts for war elephants in what is now Eritrea a country with the northernmost population of elephants
In the Battle of Raphia Ptolemy had 73 African war elephants and Antiochus had 102 Asian war elephants according to Polybius a Greek historian who described the battle at least 70 years later.
A few of Ptolemy's elephants ventured too close with those of the enemy and now the men in the towers on the back of these beasts made a gallant fight of it striking with their pikes at close quarters
Ptolemy's elephants however declined the combat as is the habit of African elephants; for unable to stand the smell
In 1948 Sir William Gowers reasoned that Ptolemy must have fought with forest elephants that fled from larger Asian elephants as Polybius described.
Did Ptolemy employ African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) or African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) in the Battle or Raphia?
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