The book is dedicated to one of the most interesting subjects concerning the military affairs of the Ancient World - war elephants, whose history can be traced from the era of Alexander the Great to the period of the Sassanid rule. The first attempt in Russian historiography is being made to generalize and systematize all the accumulated material on this topic. The reasons that caused the beginning, heyday and decline of the "era of war elephants" are considered. For specialists in the history of military affairs of Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.