252 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOET. [Book VIII. 



and that they were slain with javelins, for want of some better 

 method of disposing of them ; as the people neither liked to 

 keep them nor yet to give them to the kings. 37 L. Piso tells 

 us only that they were brought into the Circus ; and for the 

 purpose of increasing the feeling of contempt towards them, 

 they were driven all round the area of that place by work- 

 men, who had nothing but spears blunted at the point. The 

 authors who are of opinion that they were not killed, do not, 

 however, inform us how they were afterwards disposed of. 



CHAP. 7. (7.) THE COMBATS OF ELEPHANTS. 



There is a famous combat mentioned of a Roman with an 

 elephant, when Hannibal compelled our prisoners to fight 

 against each other. The one who had survived all the others 

 he placed before an elephant, and promised him his life if he 

 should slay it ; upon which the man advanced alone into the 

 arena, and, to the great regret of the Carthaginians, succeeded 

 in doing so. 38 Hannibal, however, thinking that the news of 

 this victory might cause a feeling of contempt for these ani- 

 mals, sent some horsemen to kill the man on his way home. 

 In our battles with Pyrrhus it was found, on making trial, 

 that it was extremely easy to cut off the trunks of these ani- 

 mals. 39 Penestella informs us, that they fought at Borne in 

 the Circus for the first time during the curule sedileship 

 of Claudius Pulcher, in the consulship of M. Antonius and A. 

 Postumius, in the year of the City 655 ; and that twenty years 

 afterwards, during the curule aedileship of the Luculli, they 

 were set to fight against bulls. In the second consulship 40 of 



87 Who were their allies, or rather vassals ; for in such case, they might 

 make a dangerous use of them. 



38 Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 2, gives an account of the brutality of Han- 

 nihal on this occasion, in forcing the Roman captives to fight against each 

 other, until only one was left ; hut he does not make mention of the com- 

 bat with the elephant. B. 



39 Florus, B. i. c. 18, states, that this was practised in the later engage- 

 ments with Pyrrhus, and that by these means the elephants were either 

 destroyed or rendered useless. Cuvier remarks, that the trunk is composed 

 of small muscles and fatty matter, enveloped by a tendinous membrane, and 

 covered with skin. B. 



* A.TJ.C. 678. -B. 



