90 Cuvier's Lectures mi the Natural Sciences, 



of naturalliistory, — a science of luxury, extensive, and incapable 

 of being prosecuted without much previous preparation. For, as 

 the relations among the beings of which it treats cannot be 

 estabhshed without comparing a great number of individuals, in 

 commerce, which collects the productions of foreign countries, 

 natural history finds a powerful support. Now, the Romans were 

 for a long time not a commercial people. By their first treaty 

 with the Carthaginians, they engaged not to go beyond the straits 

 which separate Sicily from Africa. Some time after, A.U.C. 405, 

 they gave up their trade with Sardinia and the coast of Africa 

 altogether. It was not ignorance, but policy, that induced the 

 government to discountenance corhmerce, which they did for the 

 purpose of preventing the introduction of luxury. Rome had no 

 silver currency until the year 472 of its foundation, or 268 before 

 Christ. At the period of the last Macedonian war, a senator was 

 degraded for having ten pounds of silver plate. It was at the 

 termination of this war, at the triumph of Paulus Emilius, that 

 gold plate was seen for the first time. But luxury soon followed 

 victory, and individual voluptuousness was carried to the highest 

 pitch of extravagance. We shall speak of it in as far as it regards 

 natural history. The luxury of the table, for example, brought to 

 Rome many strange animals, several of which had nothing else to 

 recommend them than their extreme rarity and excessive price. 

 The luxury of their clothing, also, deserves attention, as it has 

 relation to precious stones and dyes ; that of buildings, on account 

 of the marbles brought from different parts of Italy, Greece, and 

 even Gaul ; and that of their furniture, from the valuable woods 

 made use of. 



During the period of the second Punic War, Fulvius Hirpinus 

 first made parks for confining quadrupeds. These parks were 

 called leporaria, because three kinds of hares (the common hare, 

 the original Spanish rabbit, and the variegated or Alpine hare, a 

 species which is now almost entirely destroyed,) were reared in 

 them. Almost all the native beasts of our forests, and the wild 

 sheep or mouflon, were likewise brought up there. These animals- 

 were almost domesticated, and were accustomed to come together 

 at a certain signal. One day, during an entertainment given by 

 Hortensius, in one of his parks, at the sound of a trumpet, stags, 

 goats, and wild boars, were seen running up and collecting round 

 his tent, not without causing dismay to some of his guests. 

 Servius Rullus was the first who served up an entire wild boar at 

 table. Antony, during his triumvirate, displayed eight of these 

 animals at once. The Romans considered the gray dormouse — a 

 little animal which dwells in the woods and in the holes of oak trees 

 — as a great delicacy. They reared them in the parks, lodged 

 them in jars of earthenware of a particular form, and fattened 

 them with acorns and chestnuts. 



Lenius Strabo, of Brundusium, contrived aviaries for confining 

 those birds destined for the table which could not be kept within 



