49. There were two hundred scythed chariot at the battle of
Arbela, in the host of Darius. In the vast army of Tigranes,
which was vanquished by Lucullus, seventeen thousand horse
only were completely armed. Antiochus brought fifty-four
elephants into the field against the Romans: by his frequent
wars and negotiations with the princes of India, he had once
collected an hundred and fifty of those great animals; but
it may be questioned whether the most powerful monarch of
Hindostan ever formed a line of battle of seven hundred
elephants. Instead of three or four thousand elephants,
which the Great Mogul was supposed to possess, Tavernier
(Voyages, part ii. 1. i. p. 198) discovered, by a more
accurate inquiry, that he had only five hundred for his
baggage, and eighty or ninety for the service of war. The
Greeks have varied with regard to the number which Porus
brought into the field: but Quintus Curtius (viii. 13), in
this instance judicious and moderate, is contented with
eighty-five elephants, distinguished by their size and
strength. In Siam, where these animals are the most numerous
and the most esteemed, eighteen elephants are allowed as a
sufficient proportion for each of the nine brigades into
which a just army is divided. The whole number, of one
hundred and sixty-two elephants of war, may sometimes be
doubled. Hist. des Voyages, tom. ix. p. 260.