On Animals depicted mi Antique Monuments. 279 



were four lynxes, an Ethiopian rhinoceros, and a cajjieleopard. 

 What appeared still more remarkable was a pack of two thou- 

 sand four hundred dogs, and which was followed by twenty-four 

 male lions of consummate beauty.* 



We have already spoken of the astonishment which was mani- 

 fested by modern naturalists, on the assertion that Ptolemy had 

 exhibited a white hear in the feast which he gave to the people 

 of Alexandria, on his accession to the throne. The same natu- 

 ralists have appeared equally surprised that Megasthenes has 

 stated in his voyages, fragments of which are preserved by 

 Strabo, Arrian, ^lian, and Athenaeus, that bears were to be 

 found in the south of India. In truth, for a long period, it 

 was not known that they really existed in that country' ; but 

 some little time since, many species have been discovered there, 

 among others the jungle bear, and it is only fair to do justice to 

 the accuracy of Megasthenes, as well as to other naturalists and 

 writers of antiquity. 



Megasthenes has affirmed that most of our domestic animals 

 are to be found in a wild state in India, an assertion which has 

 more lately been confirmed by .^lien, and the accuracy of which 

 is now becoming more apparent and specific, as it regards many 

 animals. But, without dwelling on this, it is at all events cer- 

 tain, that the bear is found on antiques, quite as often as the 

 several large carnivorous animals of which we have already 

 spoken. They are also extremely well depicted, and can easily 

 be recognised. Respecting the species of the kind, they must 

 have been well known at Rome ; for Scipio Nasica and Publius 

 Lentulus exhibited more than fifty individuals at a time, and 

 Caligula alone caused 400 to be slaughtered in the Circus. 



The btiffalo, the bison of the ancients, has been also repre- 

 sented upon many qf their monuments. It would even appear 

 that the Romans had succeeded in training them ; at least the 

 Emperor Domitian harnessed them to his chariots. At a later 

 period this animal appeared in the games of the Circus, and 

 amongst more than 400 animals that Septimus Severus present- 

 ed, as issuing forth from an immense machine, in those fetes 



• See Athenaeus, lib. v. pp. 196, 203. Also the description of this Feast 

 in the History of the Commerce and Navigation of the Egyptians, under the 

 Ptolemies. By Ameilbon. Paris, 1766, p. 70. 



