Luxury of the Romans. 93 



a species of thuya brought from Cyrenaica. It was not the trunk onl y 

 that was employed, but also certain knots which grow near the 

 roots. When they succeeded in getting pieces of a large s ize, 

 they sold them at very high prices. Cethegus paid for a t able 

 1,400,000 sesterces ; even Seneca himself, notwithstanding his 

 invectives against luxury, had one which cost an enormous sum. 

 These pieces were distinguished according to their colours, and 

 by the manner in which they were veined. Ebony was also 

 employed ; this was brought, for the first time, into Ital y by 

 Pompey, after his victories over the pirates. 



A great deal of marble was used in building. It was brought 

 from the most remote countries, and there were even several, the 

 quarries of which are now unknown; thus, the marbles designated 

 by the names of vert antique, rouge antique, are so called, be cause 

 they are only met with in ancient buildings. It was while seeking 

 for some of these fragments amongst some ruins, that Pompeii 

 was discovered. 



If, from individual luxury, we turn our attention to that which 

 was displayed at the public feasts, we find still more reason to be 

 astonished. One would scarcely venture to repeat the accounts 

 contained in ancient authors ; and yet the general accordance, 

 in their several narratives, the circumstance of their having been 

 eye-witnesses of that which they describe, and the improbability 

 of their advancing statements opposed to the knowledge of all 

 their contemporaries, forbid us from charging them with exag- 

 geration. Messrs Beckmann, Mongez, and Cuvier, have made 

 very extensive inquiries concerning the animals which it was 

 the custom to exhibit or slay in the circus ; inquiries which are 

 by no means to be regarded as mere objects of curiosity. It 

 is important to the naturalist, for several reasons, to know the 

 period of the discovery of these animals, the countries of which 

 they were natives, and the number which was taken. Without 

 these data, for example, we might often mistake the bones of 

 foreign quadrupeds for true fossil remains, and thus mistake trans- 

 ported soil for regular formations. 



Curius Dentatus first exhibited foreign animals at Rome, in the 

 year 273 before Christ. It will be remembered that elephants 

 were introduced into Greece during the conquest of Alexander. 

 Aristotle saw them, and wrote much better accounts of them than 

 those which BufFon has since written. These elephants, and some 

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

 of Macedonia, who took them from Demetrius Poliorcetes. On 

 the defeat of Pyrrhus, by the Romans, four of his war elephants 

 fell into the power of the conquerors, and 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 Carthaginians, captured one hundred and forty- 

 two elephants, which were all killed with arrows in the circus ; and 

 so prodigal were they of their elephants, that they seem not even 

 to have made use of their tusks. It has been supposed, that in 



