Hannibal Barca, the mighty Carthaginian general, stands mounted on the back of his war elephant Surus as they cross the Italian countryside in 216 BC. Of the thirty-seven elephants that Hannibal took with him on his campaign against the Roman Republic, Surus was the last one to survive. The meaning of the elephant’s name has two possible translations. One is “the Syrian” (suggesting that it was an Asian elephant instead of the African elephants the Carthaginians normally used), and the other is “stake” in reference to its tusks (one of which was described as broken). The latter interpretation is what I went with since I personally feel an African savanna elephant would make a more intimidating mount than the smaller Asian species.