I must share this with the world

From Peter Connolly's Greece and Rome at War, regarding Polybius's account of Hannibal getting his elephants across the Rhone:

The elephants were lured onto the jetty by two females which were led on first. As soon as they reached the last rafts they were cut loose and towed across by rowing boats. At first the elephants were terrified and jostled around, but when they saw the water on all sides they froze with fear and huddled together in the middle of the raft. In this way most of the animals were ferried across. Some, however, fell trumpeting into the river halfway across, drowning their mahouts (the dudes who kept them under control. Good job, guys}. Polybius insists, however, that the elephants managed to breathe by holding their trunks above the water and walking along the bed of the river, almost certainly impossible when one considers the depth of the river and the force of the current. Nobody seems to be willing to put Polybius to the test by throwing an elephant into the Rhone.

I think that's the best line I've ever read in a real actual academic book. (This book is hilarious, by the way. The illustrations! THE HILARIOUS ILLUSTRATIONS.)