ELEPHANT: This heraldic symbol denotes great strength, greater wit and greatest ambition. The Elephant was the ensign of Cyneus, king of Scythia, and Idomenes, king of Thessaly. Elephants are the bearers of kings and queens and so a symbol of royalty, prosperity, temperance, dignity, and power. In 250 BC, Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus (now North Albania), with an army of 25,000 men and 20 Elephants won a hard-fought victory over the Romans at Heraclea. At a crucial phase of the battle, Pyrrhus ordered his Elephants to charge and it was too much for the Roman legions. The Romans had never seen Elephants before and called them 'Lucanian Cows'. The Elephant was the totem animal of the god Shiva, the Destroyer, who seeks to banish illusion and to encourage a clearer perception of reality.