It stands to reason that if an occupying force doesn’t stay long in an area, and its animals die along the way, that the now destitute locals will take the “road kill” and scrounge every possible calorie from it. And marrow was a dish rather than something for soup stock up until the modern era. The Illiad basically won’t shut up about it.
So I have no doubt that every dead elephant anyone could find was 100% rendered down into food and leather by the beleaguered locals. And probably every cousin from one village over got told about the find too. (I suspect elephant leather would make amazing peasant shoes)
This is also why so many soldiers ended up dead outside of battle, and not from getting stabbed. Why Sun Tzu and Clauzewitz went on and on about logistics.
Isn't this how Rome was sacked way back when it was just a city among many others in the Italian peninsula? If I recall correctly, this was a wake-up call for the city to start working on protecting itself adequately.
An uncited passage in Wikipedia explains how the French Troops, defeated during their Napoleonic Invasion (1808), burned and demolished Manresa on retreat, and the villagers simply rebuilt the buildings from the same rubble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manresa
I can attest that many buildings downtown are definitely rubble-y.
I highly recommend reading about what happened from the Carthaginian perspective instead of the typical Roman perspective.
There's also some elaboration on the usage of elephants, the feasibility of of this, and how ultimately ineffective it was for war. (It was great for scaring the enemy, but the issue is they indiscriminately hurt both armies).
By sadle hight not at ear top hight, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant
mentions hannibals last surviving elephant by name
https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/2023/04/11/%F0%9F%90%...
The latter years of his life must have been very disappointing
I've always seen pictures like the one on this Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal%27s_crossing_of_the_A...) where his army landed in Cartagena and then marched East.
But this article mentions the bone was found in Cordoba which is West by a few hundred miles and pretty far inland.
Misinterpreted all the time. Very similar terms in the Greek sources.
Just to add to your point: Many many cultures have used elephants in their armies, so the only real bone of contention (oh god I do love my puns) would have been that Hannibal was using them on the European continent.
