Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Entry: War Pigs

Last night's Daily Show was a repeat, but it did feature a bit on how funding is going to be cut for laser-mounted jet fighters. Tragic, but as it turns out, our ancestors had a [technically] long-range weapon that was six million times more badass and can be had for a fraction of the price: a herd of pigs set on fire. The finest in anti-war-elephant combat.

"Aelian reports that Antipater's siege of Megara during the Wars of the Diadochi was broken when the Megarians poured oil on a herd of pigs, set them alight, and drove them towards the enemy's massed war elephants. The elephants bolted in terror from the flaming squealing pigs often killing great numbers of the army the elephant was part of."

Despite that final run-on sentence, that's quite the mental image.

Now I know that some of you want to reply "Mmm, bacon." Guys, that's disgusting. Those pigs were covered in tar sometimes.

5 comments:

noiselessinfinity said...

I understand the CIA did something similar in Cuba with cats and burning things tied to their tails; it was apparently an effort to burn down Cuban crops. This came to me from a high school history teacher.

But that's irrelevant, because I have Black Sabbath stuck in my head now.

Pooka said...

Tar aside, the article says they could also be doused in olive oil. And streaky bacon with olive oil doesn't sound so bad!

I shall call it, "war bacon".

Regina said...

@noiselessinfinity: Why would the CIA use cats? I mean, certainly anything with something burning tied to its tail is going to freak out, but maybe choose an animal that's not well known for sleeping 20 hours out of the day.

@Pooka: Ancient Mediterranian Warfare-themed dinner party. Aaaaand: GO!

Anonymous said...

for the record: the earliest account of such warfare is samson in the bible.
he tied 300 foxes in pairs and put torches in their tails and had them run through the philistine's fields.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson
third or so paragraph

Anonymous said...

That's very similar to the viagra online war in a bar haha that once suppostly any woman can put a viagra in any glass of any men haha and that was just crazy, the police came and eveything because a neightboard said we we're having sex in the bar. haha
Thanks for sharing.
San wikipedia forever.