Chap. 20.] LIONS. 269 



multitude of his pursuers. If a person has thrown a dart at 

 him, but has failed to inflict a wound, the animal seizes him, 

 whirls him round and throws him to the ground, but without 

 wounding him. When the lioness is defending her whelps, it is 

 said that she fixes her eyes steadily on the ground, that she 

 may not be frightened at the spears of the hunters. In all 

 other respects, these animals are equally free from deceit and 

 suspicion. They never look at an object obliquely, and they 

 dislike being looked at themselves in such a manner. It is 

 generally believed, that, when the lion is dying, he bites at the 

 earth, and sheds tears at his fate.^ Powerful, however, and 

 fierce as this animal is, he is terrified by the motion of wheels 

 or of an empty chariot, and still mfere on seeing the crest or 

 hearing the crowing of a cock ;'' but most of all, is he afraid of 

 fire. The only malady to which the lion is subject, is loss of 

 appetite ; this, however, is cured by putting insults upon him, 

 by means of the pranks of monkeys placed about him, a thing 

 which rouses his anger ; immediately he tastes their blood, he is 

 relieved. 



CHAP, 20. WHO IT WAS THAT FIKST INTEODrCED COMBATS OP 



LIONS AT E03IE, AND WHO HAS BEOUGHT TOGETHEE THE GEEAT- 

 EST NTJilBEE OF LIONS FOE THAT PUEPOSE. , 



Q. Scsevola, the son of P. Scsevola, when he was curule 

 aedile, was the first to exhibit at Eome a combat of a number 

 of lions ; and L. Sylla, who was afterwards Dictator, during his 

 praetorship, gave the spectacle of a fight of one hundred lions with 

 manes.^ After him, Pompeius Magnus exhibited six hundred 

 lions in the Circus, three hundred and fifteen of which had 

 manes ; Caesar, the Dictator, exhibited four hundred. 



6 Probably, there is no foundation for this opinion : it does not appear 

 that any animal, except man, has the faculty of weeping, i. e. of shedding 

 tears, in connection with a peculiar condition of mind and feeling. — B. But 

 query as to the horse. See c. 64 of the present Book, and the Introduc- 

 tion to vol. i. p. xvii. 



' This supposed fear is without foundation, but appears to have been a 

 generally received opinion, as it is referred to by Lucretius, B. iv. 1. 714 

 — 725.— B. 



8 Seneca gives an account of this exhibition ; he says that the lions were 

 turned loose into the Circus, and that spearmen were sent by king Bocchus, 

 who killed them with darts. Sylla was praetor a.u.c. 661, b.c. 92. — B. 



