54 On tlie Luxury of the Romans. 



still greater matter of astonishment. One would hardly venture 

 to repeat what is stated in ancient writers, yet there appears no 

 ground for supposing that they exaggerated, seeing how closely 

 their accounts agree; when .we reflect, too, that they were 

 nearly all eye-witnesses of what they relate, and that they 

 would not have attempted to bring forward assertions opposed 

 to the knowledge of all their contemporaries. Messrs Beckman, 

 Mongez, and Cuvier, have made very extensive inquiries about 

 the animals exhibited or slain in the circus. Such inquiries 

 ought not to be regarded as merely curious. In fact, it is of 

 importance to the naturalist, and for several reasons, to know 

 the date of the first appearance of these animals, the countries 

 of which they were natives, and their numbers. For example, 

 without ascertaining these points, a naturalist would often be 

 apt to mistake the bones of foreign quadrupeds for true fossil 

 remains, and thus to mistake transported soil for regular forma- 

 tions. 



Curius Dentatus first shewed foreign animals at Rome in the 

 year 273 before Christ. It will be recollected, that elephants 

 ^ere first brought to Greece during the conquests of Alexander. 

 Aristotle saw them, and wrote about them a great deal better 

 than Buflbn has since done. These elephants, and some others 

 sent afterwards, came into the possession of Pyrrhus, king of 

 Epirus, who had taken them from Demetrius Poliorcetes. 

 Pyrrhus having been himself defeated by the Romans, four of 

 his war-elephants fell into the power of the conquerors. These 

 elephants, after having been led in the triumphal procession of 

 Curius, were slain before the people. Four-and-twenty years 

 later, Metellus, having gained a great victory over the Cartha- 

 ginians, captured a hundred and forty-two elephants, which 

 were all slain with arrows in the circus. It was evidently good 

 policy, in the time of Curius Dentatus, to put to death some of 

 these animals, in order to lessen the fear the sight of them had 

 at first produced. There were not the same reasons for the 

 second massacre ; but, without doubt, the Romans had no de- 

 sire to introduce elephants into their armies, and thus oblige 

 themselves to alter tactics of which they had proved the excel- 

 lence. As little were they inclined to make a present of these 

 elephants to any of the kings their allies, from an apprehension 



