Fire the tower; caltrops take the beast by its own weight

For the beast, having perceived the flame and feared the danger of the fire, shakes off the battlements laid on it — and one might liken it to a tower falling on a sacked city. If it is itself wounded in the bare parts, it has already feared the enemies, and having turned onto the friends it rages harder. Like a mountain flame or a torrent downhill, being angered it thus most of all kills, wounds, takes away, throws down, treads; and it hates the corpses themselves, heaps fallen bodies, and fences the roads of those fleeing, as if warding off the friends because it has suffered these things through them.

I, however, think it better not to stand against the elephant at the start, nor to go close to the multiplied danger, but to take in advance its threats, its charges, its fights, its fallings; for, encircled and fallen, it will destroy many. Iron caltrops are forged, sharp, seated, thick. These, along the going of the beasts, are thrown dense by those pretending to withdraw, and having been trodden they stop the elephant, having sunk into the hides of the feet. For by that with which it treads the others by weight, by this it is itself caught, treading itself whole. A double advantage from this: either, being in pain, it destroys its own, consoling an incurable pain; or, not being able to stand, it falls all together.

All spoils from wars are solemn; more solemn than all, an elephant bears. A general's shield is not so honorable, nor the breastplate of a champion who has been killed, as a living elephant captive, or the first-fruits of the elephant, to a king who has conquered.