72 On Animals depicted on Antique Monuments. 



six inches in length.* This description, in conformity with the 

 mosaic, agrees too accurately with the camelopard to allow us 

 to doubt that the artist had not designed to represent these ani- 

 mals, the most curious of Africa, and which had been brought 

 on different occasions to Rome, in the triumphant processions, 

 and for the games of the Circus. -f- 



The second species, near to which we read the word 

 tctfiovg, is more difficult to determine. Let us first attend to 

 what has been said by the two antiquarians who have given us 

 an explanation of the pavement. Montfaucon observes that the 

 last syllable of the word rxfiovg signifies " bos," an ox. But as 

 the name is Ethiopic, there is no propriety in dwelling upon the 

 conjectures that this coincidence might suggest. Barthelemy, 

 by adding to the first letter a limb which had disappeared, con- 

 verts rx/3evi into Nctfiov?. Under this denomination the Ethio- 

 pians designate an animal which, with the neck of the horse, 

 the feet and legs like an ox, has a head like that of the camel. 

 The reddish colour of the nabum, intermingled with its white 

 spots, had led them to bestow upon it also the name camelo- 

 pard. And thus, under this denomination, the ancient authors 

 have confounded two distinct species, which the author of the 

 mosaic has very well distinguished. 



It results then, from these observations, that the animal 

 named Nabum in Ethiopia, really existed in that country, and 

 at an epoch which, if it was not cotemporaneous, was at least 

 little distant from that of the artist of the pavement. But if 

 this species be now lost, its destruction must have taken place 

 within the times of the records of history. For where do we 

 now find an antelope, or an ox, having a hunch on the anterior 

 and superior part of its back, with short and straight horns like 

 the camelopard, with a head like a camel, whilst the limbs I'e- 



• Belon, Observat. cap. 49. p. 263 — Aldrovande, Hist. Quad. p. 92? 



Gesner, Quad. torn. i. p. 147 — Dapper, Description de la Haute Ethiopie, 

 p. 420. 



•f- We may here remark, that the camelopard which is figured on the mo- 

 saic much more resembles that of the Cape than that of Sennar, which at the 

 present time is living at Paris. This latter, as is well known, has a more fine- 

 ly streaked coat than the Cape one, and a form which more corresponds with 

 the variety figured on the antique. 



