Elephants are not afraid of mice and do not run away from pigs.

Elephants have always been presented as animals of contrasts, either as intelligent beasts or as gentle giants fearful of seemingly ridiculous threats. One of these are the small mice, who have been singled out as the protagonists of the pachyderms' fears, or the pigs, used against them in battle. The reality is that these are false beliefs. Now, why are they related to them in this way? For this we have to go back to antiquity. 

A humanized giant 

It is known that Europeans knew of the existence of elephants since at least Homer, who used the term Elephas (Ελέφας), which in his work refers to ivory. Herodotus acknowledges the existence of a large animal in Africa. Plato further details that in Atlantis they lived in great numbers, where they showed their voracious appetite. Alexander the Great's encounter with war elephants in the battle of Gaugamela against Darius III and in the battle of the Hydaspes against Poros aroused interest in these animals. 

Although, according to Claudius Elianus, Ctesias of Cnidus was the first to describe them, the oldest surviving source is Aristotle, who possibly relied on information from the earlier author, Mnesitheus, Eudoxus of Cnidus or Callisthenes. What is doubtful is that Alexander sent an elephant donated by a satrap to his master. 

According to Aristotle, the elephant was the most tame wild beast, with a capacity for understanding, possessing human attributes such as intelligence, sensitivity, a certain continence, piety, docility, righteousness and the capacity to feel guilt or become depressed if it makes a mistake. These qualities were believed to be the product of simple imitation, like that of monkeys, but without derision. He was considered to be pious because he venerated the gods and the Sun; he emphasized his rhythm to dance, jump or do tricks to the rhythm of the flute or play the cymbals; his fidelity was demonstrated in his obedience to his master, whose orders he remembered thanks to his extraordinary memory; his love for humans was shown when he reciprocated the kindness, accompanying the corpse of his mahout in battle, or protecting the weakest, shooing the flies away from sleeping babies or rocking their cradles. 

According to Plutarch, the relations of the herd following the elders, sacrificing themselves to help those left behind or accompanying the sick, were exemplary. He also indicated that in Syria, an elephant brought to justice a thief who robbed his master or that they could extract arrows and spears from their companions without harming them. 

A fearful giant

All these qualities made them man's perfect servants, so both hunting and taming them served to position man as king of creation. In addition, they were a devastating weapon of war, inflicting fear with their presence. However, the beast was also vulnerable to arrows and group attacks. Moreover, it was a double-edged sword because it also felt fear, fleeing in terror against its own allies. 

Its ears were considered sensitive to both attacks and the sounds of flies, mosquitoes and pigs. Supposedly, high-pitched, piercing sounds caused him to panic instantly. These weaknesses would have been used by Julius Caesar at the battle of Tapso. At the battle of Zama, Hannibal Barca's elephants also fled before the attack of the troops of Publius Cornelius Scipio Scipio, "The African". In the hunt for elephants, Claudius Elianus described that the sound of trumpets, the clanging of shields and torches brought close to the face made them flee, falling into pits dug for this purpose. In spite of everything, the defeats suffered must have been exceptional and counted to reduce the fear of these beasts, since their warlike use was maintained for centuries. 

Although captive elephants might be more sensitive, if they could withstand horse whinnies, shouts and the general noise of a battle, it makes little sense that punctuated sounds would always drive them out of control. What's more, not only did they dance to the flute and cymbals, but war elephants wore bronze bells around their necks. 

Fear of small animal

In De ira, Seneca indicated that elephants feared pigs. This statement may have been based on a split play by Aristophanes of Byzantium. Pliny not only noted in Natural History that they were terrified by the slightest grunt of a pig, but added that they feared mice above all animals. This would be the first preserved source to relate the two animals in this way, as was the case with ostriches and their impulse to hide their heads in the ground when frightened. 

Pigs 

Elefantes usados para cazar jabalíes

Plutarch explained that the rejection of pigs was based on hatred, comparing their relationship with that of lions fleeing from the crowing of roosters. Claudius Elianus affirmed that the Romans had driven away the elephants of Pyrrhus of Epirus thanks to the grunts of the pigs in the battle of Asculus (279 B.C.) or in the battle of Benevento (275 B.C.). In De natura animalium, he adds that in Megara they were besieged by Antipater, so they covered the pigs in pitch and set fire to it. Although they were raised with pigs to be less afraid of their grunts, they could not keep calm. Polienus corrects Elianus by pointing out that it was not Antipater who was besieging, but Antigonus II Gonatas, who would also have been in charge of raising the elephants. On the other hand, Procopius related that, in the attack of Edessa by the Persian king Osroes I (544 B.C.), one of his elephants broke through the walls of the city, but was made to flee with a pig hung from a fortified tower. According to Suda, this city was Athens. 

Flies 

Lucian, in a sign that some things never change, complained about flies, which even bothered elephants by getting into their folds and sucking their blood. This was based on the belief that horseflies, mosquitoes and flies all had a proboscis to penetrate the skin and drink the animal's blood. Moreover, this link between elephants and flies runs parallel to that of cows and horseflies, such as the one that attacked Io turned into a cow. In fact, the Romans captured four elephants from Pyrrhus and called them "lucanian cows" (Luca bos). This is not an isolated fact, for the word elephant comes from the Phoenician aleph ("the ox"), which was also the name of its first letter and from which our letter A comes. 

In a fable by Achilles Thacius, the lion recovers his lost courage before the rooster when he sees an elephant wagging its ears in fear of a mosquito. In the following fable, the mosquito presumes to bother a lion but, when tired, falls prey to a spider. The fable describes its proboscis as a trumpet and as an arrow, these being established weaknesses of the elephant. 

Mice 

According to Pliny the Elder, nothing frightened an elephant more than a mouse. Supposedly, it was so repulsed that it was enough for it to touch the pachyderm's fodder for it not to want to eat it. In this case, the relationship would be more one of disgust than of dread. However, the real fear, and sometimes mortal, came exclusively from fables. In fact, it was not until the fourth century A.D., when Basil of Caesarea declared that he admired the mouse more than the elephant for instilling terror in spite of its size, that this situation was established as true. 

This conviction could be due to the combination of the beliefs of the pig and the fly. Although it may seem far-fetched, it is something that happened in the opposite direction. In modern Greek, there is a proverb that flies (Latin: Musca; Ancient Greek: μυῖα, muia) eat iron ("The fly eats iron and the mosquito eats steel"), something that in ancient Greek and Latin the mouse (Latin: Mus; Ancient Greek: μῦς, mûs) did as a symbol of its courage and strength.

Antagonisms 

The elephant has lesser known enmities. One is that, in India, giant snakes or worms in rivers would attack the elephant's trunk. The confrontation could have been created by their similarity. Another enmity is that of the elephant and the rhinoceros, which was tested in Lisbon. Finally, it would avoid the ram, which would be able to stop an enraged elephant.

Sources

• Zafiropoulos, C. A. (2009). What did elephants fear in Antiquity?. Les Études Classiques, 77(3-4).