Flaming Pigs-Did this nonesense really exist?

[Guest ParatrooperLirelou]

In the game Rome:Total War, they have this unit called Flaming Pigs.

 

 

According to the game manual, its purpose is to counter elephants.

 

Did the Romans ever use such pigs in war?I think its completely unbelievable, illogical,and full of nonesense !

Edited June 27, 2011 by ParatrooperLirelou

[Melvadius]

Good question and one which is mentoned on this page from the BBC website discussing the Pyrrhic War reports that:

 

...The Pyrrhic War also saw the Romans adopt the pilum, copied from their Samnite enemies. This helped compensate for the Roman lack of archers and slingers. Volleys of pila may have been used to stampede the elephants.

 

A last innovation, mentioned by Dionysius, but considered dubious by many historians was Roman use of flaming pigs. Supposedly the Romans tarred pigs with pitch, set them alight, and sent them in the general direction of the elephants causing them to stampede. No less a historian than the highly reputable H H Scullard considered Roman use of flaming pigs not only possible but also probable.

 

Notes on the site referring to the above include:

 

Dionysius Halicarnassensis was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric during the reign of Augustus. His most important work was Roman Antiquities, a history of Rome from its mythical foundation to the end of the First Punic War.

 

Howard Hayes Scullard (1903 - 1983) was Reader in Ancient History at King's College, London. His works are still required reading on just about every university course on Roman history.

 

I suppose I am in some sympathy with Scullard's views here, especially if you take the view that the Roman's were trying to counter something they had little or no experience with.

 

In those circumstances most large groups of military men are liable to try almost anything once - and if it doesn't actively harm them possibly twice. However don't forget they can only be used in very specific circumstances against elephants on first contact - anyone else is liable to stand well back and pepper them with arrows or bore spears until they stop moving and enjoy the roast pork afterwards

[caldrail]

It assumes the poor animals would continue moving in the required direction. I would have thought the tortured animals would have stopped running in a very short distance, being in severe discomfort to put it mildly. Scullard may have been a brilliant historian but he was no expert in animal behaviour.

[Maladict]

Where is experimental archaeology when you need it?

[Melvadius]

Where is experimental archaeology when you need it?

 

Probably in hiding from the RSPCA/ ASPCA or equivalent if they tried this

[Kosmo]

Peasants here traditionally kill their pigs on 22 december, because of some saint day or the winter solstice . After the pork is killed, usually by having his throat cut but the EU is changing that, it is covered with hey that is set alight. These is done to burn the hair and cook somewhat the pig skin that becomes an appreciated dish called ?orici (foreigners don't seem to like this salty specialty, dunno why) There are many stories about pigs that were not really dead and who were woke up by the burning hey and who chased people around and set fire to haystacks or barns. It is possible that these stories are amplified by the large quantities of alcohol that accompany this occasion but I can imagine a drunk roman peasant watching the scene of chaos that a resurrected burning pig created and deciding that it could be a useful weapon against those weird Lucan oxen that are afraid of mice.

I've heard that Americans like to cover pigs in oil and then try to catch them but it may be just an exaggerated tale about those exotic, distant lands. The origins of this noble sport may come from roman soldiers who tried to recover a pig that was already covered with pitch for the purpose of being used against elephants.

[Kosmo]

In the film Ironclad there is this scene when the viking sappers of King John (don't ask) have cornered the defenders of Magna Charta in a keep then dug a mine under it, drove 2 cartloads of live pigs in the tunnel, locked them in and set fire to hay and timber. As one character explained pig fat burns with the heat of crucible so a large part of the keep collapsed. Maybe pig fat burns hot but live pigs are, like man, mostly water so they don't really burn.

The scene was stupid but amusing, the only entertaining part of a tedious movie. Why did they called it Ironclad when there is not a decent piece of armor present? A couple of ugly chainmail suits and a helmet that looked like a bucket in another stupid but slightly amusing scene was all the armor in a film that should have been named Ragclad. Can someone imagine a king coming in arrowshot of an enemy castle without armor? Torturing people in the castle courtyard in purple cloth while the defenders are still holding the keep 10 meters away?

The main character was the actor that played Marcus Antonius in HBO Rome but his presence here only draws unflattering comparisons with that series.

[Quintus Sertorius]

Personally, I don't think Flaming Pigs did exist. It seems as though it takes quite a lot less than pigs on fire to scare elephants. If we look at sources from: Zama, Illipa and other battles in the Second Punic War (We must, of course, remember that the First Punic War only ever saw four significant battles (The course of one of which was affected by elephants: Regulus' Landing inn Africa). especially at Zama, we can see that the Velites and Lanes made in Scipio's line prevented elephants from stampeding Roman Soldiers. Possibly more significantly, the elephants who were making for the Roman Cavalry were made to run amok by a volley of Javelins from the Roman and Numidian (Massinissa (???)) Cavalry and made to stampede through and significantly weaken the Carthaginian Cavalry...

[Ursus]

The Soviets taught dogs strapped with bombs to explode themselves against panzer tracks, so I guess anything is possible.

 

But .. an animal on fire would be very uncontrollable. How to you get it to run in the direction of the enemy when it is insane from pain? Perhaps this was tried once in desperation, and if the results were mixed, not used again.

[Melvadius]

The Soviets taught dogs strapped with bombs to explode themselves against panzer tracks, so I guess anything is possible.

 

 

Erm I have heard it suggested that they actually taught them using Soviet rather than German tanks ......

 

 

Having jsut checked Wikipedia cites Zaloga, Steve (1989) The Red Army of the Great Patriotic War, 1941

[Quintus Sertorius]

The Soviets taught dogs strapped with bombs to explode themselves against panzer tracks, so I guess anything is possible.

 

But .. an animal on fire would be very uncontrollable. How to you get it to run in the direction of the enemy when it is insane from pain? Perhaps this was tried once in desperation, and if the results were mixed, not used again.

 

Indeed Ursus, however, the dogs were supposedly a disaster... The Roman Anti-Elephant tactics sometimes worked quite well...

[parthianbow]

@Quintus Sertorius: yet the practice is attested not just once, but twice more in history.

 

The first is a legend: King Porus is reputed to have shown it to Alexander after the Battle of Hydaspes.

 

But the second is in two sources: according to Aelian and Polyaenus, Antigonus Gonatas besieged Megara

with elephants in 266 BC. when the elephants were used againstthe walls, the inhabitants doused pigs in

oil, lit them and then threw them over the wall.

 

That's enough proof for me!

[Dickonbard]

Fascinating. The apparently pig-ignorant producers of the game prove to be sages who know their onions.

[DecimusCaesar]

Flaming Pigs are mentioned in the ancient accounts (which has already been mentioned) so they may well have been used in war, even if it was only once. The Ancient and Medieval Chinese supposedly used Oxen with flaming torches attached to their backs for attack, such as the siege of De'An in AD 1132, so it certainly isn't the first time that someone has though up a similar idea.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Oxen were also famously used by Hannibal as a ruse to escape the roman force tracking him down, lighting torches to the beasts horns and setting them underway, the romans hot on their heels because they thought it was the main cartaginian army