ORDER CARNIVORA: CARNIVORES 291 



peans have ventured there owing to the lack of security. (Cabrera, 

 1932, pp. 186-190.) 



Heim de Balsac (1936, p. 98) places the disappearance of the 

 species in Morocco in the decade 1900-1910 a considerably earlier 

 date than Cabrera's. 



Utilization by the Romans. "There is ... little doubt that the 

 Romans drew their chief supply of lions for the arena and gladia- 

 torial combats from Mauretania and Numidia." Pliny speaks of 

 hundreds at a time being shown by Pompey and Caesar in the 

 Roman arena. (Pease, in Bryden, 1899, p. 564.) This bespeaks a 

 great abundance of Lions in North Africa at that period. 



European Lion 



LEO LEO subsp. 



Of the Lion that still existed in Greece in classical times, no 

 remains seem to have been found. If suitable material were avail- 

 able, the modern systematist would probably find means of dis- 

 tinguishing it from any living Lion as well as from its Pleistocene 

 ancestor (Leo spelaeus) that once roamed over a large part of 

 Europe. Up to the present time, however, it apparently has not 

 received even a subspecific designation. 



Meyer (1903, pp. 65-73) has provided a useful summary of our 

 knowledge of the European Lion. Herodotus (ca. 484-430 B. C.) 

 reports many Lions between the Achelous River in Acarnania and 

 the Nestus River in Abdera (Thrace) and states that during 

 Xerxes's march through Macedonia (480 B. C.) Lions killed some 

 of his baggage camels. Aristotle (384-322 B. C.) assigns the same 

 range to the Lion, but speaks of it as rare. By A. D. 80-100 it was 

 considered entirely exterminated in Europe, as a result of a gradual 

 retreat before man and his culture. 



"The Greek name for the lion is very ancient, and this suggests 

 that it refers to an animal indigenous to the country. Although the 

 evidence is not decisive, it seems probable that lions did exist in 

 Greece at the time of Herodotus; and it is quite possible that the 

 representation of a lion-chase incised on a Mycenean dagger may 

 have been taken from life." (Flower and Lydekker, 1911, vol. 16, 

 p. 737.) 



Evidently Elliot regarded this Lion as identical with the pre- 

 historic Cave Lion (Leo spelaeus). He writes (1883, text to pi. 1) : 

 "The Cave-Lion disappeared from Britain towards the close of the 

 Postglacial period, and is considered to have retreated gradually 

 from Europe and become extinct between 340 B. C. and A. D. 100. 

 The cause of this disappearance, according to Dawkins, was the 

 warfare carried on against it by the people of those periods, as 



