Chap. 7.] ELEPHANTS. 253 



Pompeius, at the dedication of the temple of Venus Yictrix, 41 

 twenty elephants, or, as some say, seventeen, fought in the 

 Circus against a number of Gsetulians, who attacked them with 

 javelins. One of these animals fought in a most astonishing 

 manner ; being pierced through the feet, it dragged itself on 

 its knees towards the troop, and seizing their bucklers, tossed 

 them aloft into the air : and as they came to the ground they 

 greatly amused the spectators, for they whirled round and 

 round in the air, just as if they had been thrown up with a 

 certain degree of skill, 42 and not by the frantic fury of a wild 

 beast. Another very wonderful circumstauce happened; an 

 elephant was killed by a single blow. The weapon pierced 

 the animal below the eye, and entered the vital part of the 

 head. The elephants attempted, too, by their united efforts, to 

 break down the enclosure, not without great confusion among 

 the people who surrounded the iron gratings. 43 It was in con- 

 sequence of this circumstance, that Caesar, the Dictator, when 

 he was afterwards about to exhibit a similar spectacle, had the 

 arena surrounded with trenches 44 of water, which were lately 

 filled up by the Emperor Nero, 45 when he added the seats for 



41 "Venus the Conqueror." This temple was dedicated by Pompey, 

 after his conquests in the East, in his second consulship, B.C. 55. 



42 Pliny here refers to an art, practised among the Romans, of throwing 

 up a shield into the air, in such a manner that, after performing a circuit, 

 it would fall down on a certain spot ; this trick is also alluded to by Mar- 

 tial, B. ix. Ep. 39. B. The exercise with the boomerang, which was known 

 to the ancient Assyrians, and has been borrowed in modern times from 

 the people of Australasia, seems to have been somewhat similar to this. 



43 " Clathri." These were gratings of iron trellis-work, placed in front 

 of the lowest row of the spectators, to protect them from the wild beasts. 

 This exhibition took place in Pompey's Amphitheatre,, in the Campus Mar- 

 tius. The arena of the amphitheatre was mostly surrounded by a wall, 

 distinguished by the name of " podium," which was generally about eighteen 

 feet in height, and the top of which was protected by this trellis- work. In 

 the present instance, however, the " podium " can hardly have been so much 

 as eighteen feet in height. 



44 " Euripis." Julius Caesar caused a canal, ten feet wide, to be formed 

 in the Circus Maximus, around the bottom of the " podium/' to protect the 

 spectators from the wild beasts. These "euripi" probably took their 

 name from the narrow channel so called, which lay between Bceotia and 

 the island of Eubcea. 



45 We learn, however, from Lampridius, in his Life of Heliogabalus, 

 that this euripus was afterwards restored to the Circus. 



