"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece, and the roots of the Western World .... The Life of Apollonius of Tyana Philostratus {220 AD} The Boy and the Elephant: On the Nature of Control ...
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995

The Boy and the Elephant - On the Nature of Control ...

"Damis, what is the business of a good horeseman?"

"Why, what else," he replied, "than to sit firm upon the horse, and control it, and turn it with the bit, and punish it when it is unruly, and to take care that the horse does not plunge into a chasm or a ditch or a hole, especially when he is passing over a marsh or a clay bog?"

"And shall we require nothing else, Damis, of a good horseman?" said Apollonius.

"Why, yes," he said, "when the horse is galloping up a hill he must slacken the bit; and when he is going down hill he must not let the horse have his way, but hold him in; and he must caress his ears and man; and in my opinion a clever rider nevers uses a whip, and I should commend any one who rode in this way."

"And what is needful for a soldier who rides a charger?"

"The same things," he said, "O Apollonius, and in addition the ability to inflict and parry blows and to purseue and to retire, and crowd the enemies together without letthing his horse be frightened by the rattling of shields or the flashing of the helmets, or by the noise made when the men raise their war-cry and give a whoop; this, I think all belongs to good horsemanship."

"What then will you say of this boy who is riding the elephant?"

"He is much more wonderful, Apollonius. For it seems to me a superhuman feat for such a tiny mite to manage so huge an animal and guide it with the crook, which you see him digging into the elephant like an anchor, without fearing either the look of the brute or its height, or its enormous strength; and I would not have believed it possible, I swear by Athene, if I had heard another telling it, and had not seen it."

"Well then," said Apollonius, "if anyone wanted to sell us this boy, would you buy him, Damis?"

"Yes, by Zeus," he said, "and I would give everything I have to possess him. For it seems to me the mark of a liberal and splendid nature, to be able to capture like a citadel the greatest animal which earth sustains, and then govern it as its master."

"What then would you do with the boy," said the other, "unless you bought the elephant as well?"

"I would set him," said Damis, "To preside over my household and over my servants, and he would rule them much better than I can."

"And are you not able," said Apollonius, "to rule your own servants?"

"About as able to do so," replied Damis, "as you are yourself, Apollonius. For I have abandoned my property, and am going about, like yourself, eager to learn and to investigate things in foreign countries."

"But if you did actually buy the boy, and if you had two horses, one of them a racer, and the other a charger, would you put him, O Damis, on these horses?"

"I would perhaps," he answered, "upon the racer, for I see others doing the same, but how could he ever mount a war-horse accustomed to carry armour? For he could not either carry a shield, as kinghts must do; or wear a breast-plate or helmet; and how could he wield a javelin, when he cannot use the shaft of a bolt or of an arrow, but he would in military matters be like a stammerer."

"Then," said the other, "there is, Damis, something else which controls and guides this elephant, and not the driver alone, whom you admire almost to the point of almost worshipping."

Damis replied: "What can that be, Apollonius? For I see nothing else upon the animal except the boy."

"This animal," he answered, " is docile beyond all others; and when he has once been broken in to serve man, he will put up with anything at the hands of man, and he makes it his business to be tractable and obedient to him, and he loves to eat out of his hands, in the way little dogs do; and when his master approaches he fondles him with his trunk, and he will allow him to thrust his head into his jaws, and he holds them as wide open as his master likes, as we have seen among the nomads.

But of a night the elephant is said to lament his state of slavery, yest by heven, not by trumpeting in his ordinary way, but by wailing mournfully and piteously. And if a man comes upon him when he is lamenting in this way, the elephant stops his dirge at once as if he were ashamed.

Such control, O Damis, has he over himself, and it is his instinctive obedience which actuates him rather than the man who sits upon and directs him."

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"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece, and the roots of the Western World .... The Life of Apollonius of Tyana Philostratus {220 AD} The Boy and the Elephant: On the Nature of Control ...
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995