184 The Wild Elephant. 



mere report, all which it behoves a philosopher, and most of 

 all one who is an ardent lover of truth, not to do. But what 

 I have seen myself, and what others have described as having 

 occurred at Rome, this I have chosen to relate, selecting a few 

 facts out of many, to show the particular nature of those 

 creatures. The elephant when tamed is an animal most 

 gentle and most easily led to do whatever he is directed. 

 And by way of showing honour to time, I will first narrate 

 events of the oldest date. Caesar Germanicus, the nephew of 

 Tiberius, exhibited once a public show, wherein there were 

 many full-grown elephants, male and female, and some of 

 their breed born in this country. When their limbs were 

 beginning to become firm, a person familiar with such animals 

 instructed them by a strange and surpassing method of 

 teaching ; using only gentleness and kindness, and adding to 

 his mild lessons the bait of pleasant and varied food. By 

 this means he led them by degrees to throw off all wildness, 

 and, as it were, to desert to a state of civilisation, conducting 

 themselves in a manner almost human. He taught them 

 neither to be excited on hearing the pipe, nor to be disturbed 

 by the beat of drum, but to be soothed by the sounds of 

 the reed, and to endure unmusical noises and the clatter of 

 feet from persons while marching ; and they were trained to 

 feel no fear of a mass of men, nor to be enraged at the 

 infliction of blows, not even when compelled to twist their 

 limbs and to bend them like a stage dancer, and this too 

 although endowed with strength and might. And there is in 

 this a very noble addition to nature, not to conduct themselves 

 in a disorderly manner and disobediently towards the instruc- 

 tions of man ; for after the dancing-master had made them 

 expert, and they had learnt their lessons accurately, they did 

 not belie the labour of his instruction whenever a necessity 

 and opportunity called upon them to exhibit what they had 



