iMxury of the Romans. 95 



afFord such spectacles, — the eagerness of allied kings to humour 

 them, — the prodigious number of men employed by them in 

 obtaining the animals exhibited to the people. Nor is it less asto- 

 nishing that they were able to procure such a number of wild 

 beasts. And yet the Romans of the republic were afterwards 

 surpassed by the Emperors in this kind of magnificence. From 

 an inscription in honour of Augustus, found at Ancyra, we learn, 

 that this prince caused three thousand five hundred wild beasts 

 to be slain before the people. On one occasion, he had water 

 brought into the circus of Flaminius, and shewed thirty-six living 

 crocodiles, which were then torn to pieces by wild beasts. Two 

 hundred and sixty-eight lions were killed at this entertainment. 

 There was, besides, a serpent fifty cubits long, an African python, 

 and a royal tiger, confined in a cage, the first that had been seen 

 in Rome. Augustus, before he became emperor, on the occasion 

 of his triumph over Cleopatra, had a reindeer and a hippopotamus 

 slain in the circus. Germanicus, at his triumph over the Germans, 

 brought out elephants which had been taught to dance. Caligula 

 gave four hundred bears and four hundred panthers to be killed. 

 Claudius, at the dedication of the Pantheon, displayed four royal 

 tigers : a mosaic pavement, which has lasted till our time, repre- 

 sents these animals of their natural size. The same emperor, 

 being apprized that a whale was stranded in the harbour of Ostia, 

 repaired thither, and attacked the animal with his galleys. It is 

 probable that this was a large species of dolphin, the area, Galba 

 exhibited an elephant which walked on a tight rope to the top of 

 the theatre, with a Roman horseman on his back. These elephants 

 were taught when young, being born in Rome, ^lian mentions 

 this distinctly, in speaking of the elephants of Germanicus. Mr 

 Corse has shewn, in opposition to the opinion of Buffon, that, with 

 certain precautions, elephants will breed in a state of domes- 

 tication. But the fact was known in Italy from the time of 

 Columella. 



This profusion continued during the first four centuries of the 

 Roman empire. Titus, at the dedication of the Thermae, exhi- 

 bited nine thousand animals, and a number of cranes fighting. 

 Domitian gave hunts by torch-light, where the two-horned rhino- 

 ceros was seen — an animal which Sparmann only discovered 

 about sixty years ago, though it is engraven on the medals of 

 Domitian. In these games, a woman was seen fighting with a 

 lion ; an elephant, after having trampled to death a bull, went and 

 knelt before the emperor ; a royal tiger killed a lion ; and the 

 aurochs dragged chariots. Martial has devoted a whole book to 

 the description of Domitian's games ; and naturalists will find many 

 curious hints in his epigrams. 



Trajan, after his victory over Deceballus, King of Parthia, gave 

 entertainments which lasted twenty-three days. According to 

 Dio Cassius, eleven thousand animals were slaughtered at them. 

 Adrian also exhibited a vast number of animals ; but the accounts 

 of historians are much less interesting than a mosaic executed by 



