254 pliny's natural history. [Book VIII. 



the equestrian order.*^ "When, however, the elephants in the 

 exhibition given by Pompeius had lost all hopes of escaping, 

 they implored the compassion of the multitude by attitudes 

 which surpass all description, and with a kind of lamentation 

 bewailed their unhappy fate. So greatly were the people 

 affected by the scene, that, forgetting the general altogether, 

 and the munificence which had been at such pains to do them 

 honour, the whole assembly rose up in tears, and showered 

 curses on Pompeius, of which he soon afterwards became the 

 victim. They fought also in the third consulship of the Dic- 

 tator Caesar, twenty of them against five hundred foot soldiers. ^'^ 

 On another occasion twenty elephants, carrying towers,''^ and 

 each defended by sixty men, were opposed to the same number 

 of foot soldiers as before, and an equal number of horsemen. 

 Afterwards, under the Emperors Claudius and Nero, the last 

 exploit*^ that the gladiators performed was fighting single- 

 handed^ with elephants. 



The elephant is said to display such a merciful disposition 

 towards animals that are weaker than itself, that, when it 

 finds itself in a flock of sheep, it will remove with its trunk ^^ 

 those that are in the way, lest it should unintentionally 



*s Tacitus and Suetonius mention this separation of the equites from 

 the rest of the spectators: it took place a.u.c. 816. — B. Up to the time 

 of Augustus, A.u.c. 758, the senators, equites, and people sat indiscriminately 

 in the Circus ; but that emperor, and after him Claudius, Nero, and Domi- 

 tian, separated the senators and the equites from the commons. 



*^ There are coins which bear the figure of an elephant and the word 

 Caesar, probably struck in commemoration of these games. — B. 



^^ The practice of placing towers filled with soldiers on the backs of the 

 elephants is alluded to by Lucretius, B. v. 1. 1301, and by Juvenal, Sat. 

 xii, 1. 110. — B. It stiU prevails in India. 



49 '• Consummatione gladiatorum." There is some doubt about the exact 

 meaning of this. It may mean, " at the conchision of the gladiatorial 

 games," as exhibited; or, what is more probable, "as the crowning exploit 

 of the gladiators," who wished thereby to secure their manumission, which 

 was granted after remarkable feats of valour. Cselius Ehodiginus, B. xi. 

 c. 11, prefers this last meaning : Dalechamps, with whom Ajasson coincides, 

 the first. 



50 " Postea singulis." Those who coincide with Dalechamps and Ajas- 

 son, as to the meaning, would read it, that at the end of the gladiatorial 

 games, the elephants fought singly one against another, the gladiators 

 having retired from the arena. 



5^ Pliny here uses the word "manu," "hand," which although, as he 

 afterwards remarks, it may not be an inappropriate metaphor, could scarcely 

 be admitted in our language. — B. 



