66 LEAVES FROil THE 



quent writers, should be so extremely inaccurate, ■wliile 

 tlie representations "wliicli have come down to us are com- 

 pai'atively correct. Take, for example, the coin of 

 Hadrian, with a crocodile at the side of Xilus and a hip- 

 popotamus looking up at the river god ; the coin of 

 Marcia Otacilla Severa ; and the sculpture on the plinth 

 of the statue of the Nile, with a crocodile or scink — pro- 

 bably the former — in its mouth. 



Besides, one should think that some had seen the 

 animal itself. ' Marcus Scaurus was the first man, who 

 in his plaies and games that he set out in his a?dileship, 

 made a show of one water-Horse and foure Crocodiles 

 swimming in a poole or mote made for the time during 

 those solemnities.'* One, also, swelled the triumphal 

 pomp of Aug-ustus after his victory over Cleopatra. The 

 later emperors exhibited them frequently, and there is 

 every reason for concluding that they were shown, no 

 longer as mere objects of curiosity, but matched with men. 

 The bestiarius must have thought he had an ugly cus- 

 tomer when the lanista first introduced a hippopotamus 

 to him as the antagonist against which he was pitted. 

 The third Gordian gratified the people with the display 

 of thirty-two elephants, ten elks, ten tigers, sixty tame 

 lions, thirty tame leopards, ten hysenas, a thousand pair 

 of gladiators, one hipj^opotamus, one rhinoceros, and ten 

 cameleopards. These gigantic 'games' as they were 

 called, had almost always a bloody termination ; and the 

 gifted author of The Last Days of Pompeii caught the 

 spirit of the savage populace when he made one of them 

 shout in joyous anticipation, — 



Ho ! ho ! for the mem- merry show, 



T\'ith a forest of faces in every row ; 



Lo ! the swordsmen bold as the son of Alcmaena 



Sweep side by side o'er the hush'd arena. 



* Holland's Piiiiv. 



