Chap. 25.] TIGERS. 2/5 



animals being imported from Africa into Italy ; but Cn. Au- 

 fidius, the tribune of the people, 25 procured a law repealing 

 this, which allowed of their being brought over for the games 

 of the Circus. Scaurus, in his sedileship, 26 was the first who 

 sent over the parti-coloured kind, one hundred and fifty in the 

 whole ; after which, Pompeius Magnus sent four hundred and 

 ten, and the late Emperor Augustus four hundred and twenty. 



CHAP. 25. TIGERS : WHEN FIRST SEEN AT ROME ; THEIR NATURE. 



The same emperor was the first person who exhibited at 

 Home a tame tiger 27 on the stage. 28 This was in the consul- 

 ship of Q. Tubero and Fabius Maximus, 29 at the dedication 

 of the theatre of Marcellus, on the fourth day before the 

 nones of May : the late Emperor Claudius exhibited four at 

 one time. 30 ^ 



(18.) Hyrcania and India produce the tiger, an animal of 

 tremendous swiftness, a quality which is more especially tested 

 when we deprive it of all its whelps, which are always very 

 numerous. They are seized by the hunter, who lies in wait 

 for them, being provided with the fleetest horse he can possi- 

 bly obtain, and which he frequently changes for a fresh one. 

 As soon as the female finds her lair empty for the male takes 

 no care whatever of his offspring headlong she darts forth, 

 and traces them by the smell. Her approach is made known 

 by her cries, upon which the hunter throws down one of the 



25 He was tribune A.U.C. 670. Cicero says, Tusc. Qugest. B. iv. c. 39, 

 that Aufidius, although blind, was eminent for his political and literary 

 talents. He wrote a History of Greece. B. 



26 4th of May, A.U.C. 696. B. 



27 See also Suetonius, Life of Augustus. Martial, Spect. Ep. 18, relates 

 a circumstance respecting a tame tiger, which occurrence appears to have 

 taken place at the time when he wrote. Heliogabalus yoked tigers to his car, 

 in imitation of Bacchus, as we are informed by Lampridius. 



28 " In cavea." In the arena or centre of the amphitheatre. This 

 word often signifies, however, the place where the senators, equites, and 

 plebeians, sat in the theatre : and in the later writers it is used to signify 

 the whole amphitheatre. *- 



29 A.U.C. 742. B. 



30 In the winter of 1809 and 1810, an antique mosaic pavement was dis- 

 covered at Rome, in which four tigers are represented, and which, it has 

 been supposed, might possibly have some reference to those exhibited by 

 Claudius. Martial, who lived a little after Pliny, speaks of tigers exhibited 

 at Rome, by Domitian, in considerable numbers. Epig. B. viii. Ep. 26. B. 



