Extraordi7iary Exhibitions in the Circus. 57 



will breed in a §tate of domestication. But the fact was known 

 in Italy from the time of Columella. 



This lavish expenditure continued during the four first cen- 

 turies of the Roman empire. Titus, at the dedication of his 

 baths, placed in the circus nine thousand animals, and exhibit- 

 ed cranes fighting together. Domitian gave hunts by torch- 

 light, where the two-horned rhinoceros appeared, — an animal 

 with which Sparrman has made us acquainted only within the 

 last sixty years, though it is engraved on the medals of Domi- 

 tian. In these games a woman fought with a lion. An ele- 

 phant, after having trampled to death a bull, went and knelt 

 to the emperor; a royal tiger killed a lion; and wild cattle 

 dragged chariots. Martial has occupied a whole book with the 

 description of the games of Domitian. In his epigrams natural- 

 ists will find many curious hints. 



Trajan, after his victory over Deceballus, king of Parthia, 

 gave entertainments that lasted three-and-twenty days. Accord- 

 ing to Dio Cassius, eleven thousand animals perished at them. 

 But the accounts of historians are much less interesting, than a 

 mosaic, executed by order of that emperor. In this valuable 

 fragment, which was discovered at Palestrina, the ancient Prae- 

 neste, the animals of Egypt and Ethiopia are figured with the 

 names under each of them. The lower part represents the 

 inundation of the Nile. The forms of the ibis, the crocodile, 

 and the hippopotamus, are very exactly given. But the hippo- 

 potamus has been very ill described by the Roman naturalists, 

 who have only copied from Herodotus. On the upper part of 

 the mosaic there appear among the mountains of Ethiopia the 

 giraffe, under the name of 7iabis ; apes, and various reptiles ; 

 in all thirty animals, easily recognised, and whose nomencla- 

 ture is thus determined. 



Antoninus, the successor of Adrian, conforming to the esta- 

 blished usage, likewise exhibited games. He had crocodiles, 

 hippopotamuses, strepsiceroses (antelopes), and hyaenas different 

 from those described by Agatarchis. 



Marcus Aurelius abhorred such spectacles, but his son Com- 

 modus resumed them with fury ; with his own hand he slew a 

 tiger, a hippopotamus, and an elephant. He sent into the cir- 

 cus a great number of ostriches, and as they ran about cut off 



