War pig

War pigs are pigs reported to have been used in ancient warfare, mostly as a countermeasure against war elephants.

In the first century BC, Lucretius noted that early humans may have attempted to launch wild beasts, such as lions or "savage boars", against the enemy, but with catastrophic results.

According to legend recounted in the "Alexander Romance" by Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander the Great learned about this "secret weapon" against war elephants from Porus in India.

Pliny the Elder reported that "elephants are scared by the smallest squeal of the hog".Aelian confirmed that elephants were frightened by squealing pigs (and rams with horns), and reported that the Romans exploited squealing pigs (and rams) to repel the war elephants of Pyrrhus in 275 BC. Procopius, in History of the Wars, records that the defenders of Edessa suspended a squealing pig from the walls to frighten away Khosrau's single siege elephant in the sixth century AD.

Historical accounts of incendiary pigs or flaming pigs were recorded by the military writer Polyaenus and by Aelian. Both writers reported that Antigonus II Gonatas' siege of Megara in 266 BC was broken when the Megarians doused some pigs with combustible pitch, crude oil or resin, 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 their own soldiers by trampling them to death.

War pigs (disambiguation)

War pigs are pigs speculated to have been used at most rarely in ancient warfare as a countermeasure to war elephants.

War pigs may also refer to:

See also

War Pigs

"War Pigs" is a song by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath. It is the opening track from their 1970 album Paranoid.

Overview

The original title of "War Pigs" was "Walpurgis", dealing with the witches' sabbath. "Walpurgis is sort of like Christmas for Satanists. And to me, war was the big Satan", said bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler. "It wasn’t about politics or government or anything. It was [about] evil. So I was saying 'generals gathered in the masses / just like witches at black masses' to make an analogy. But when we brought it to the record company, they thought 'Walpurgis' sounded too Satanic. And that's when we turned it into 'War Pigs'. But we didn't change the lyrics, because they were already finished." Prior to its official release, the band often altered the lyrics significantly when performing it live. An example of this can be found on Ozzy Osbourne's compilation The Ozzman Cometh, which features an early version recorded by Black Sabbath for BBC Radio 1 on 26 April 1970. While Butler has said that "War Pigs" is "totally against the Vietnam War, about how these rich politicians and rich people start all the wars for their benefit and get all the poor people to die for them", vocalist Osbourne has stated that the group "knew nothing about Vietnam. It's just an anti-war song." The song's instrumental outro is entitled "Luke's Wall".