The Lion 81 



or report the talk of those dark satellites who guarded 

 the vivaria of the Colosseum or theatre of Marcellus ? 



The reason was this : independently of everything else, 

 a Roman of those days was satiated with the sight of actual 

 slaughter until all that now fascinates the attention and 

 enthralls the interest of a reader of adventures had be- 

 come insipid. The bestiarii y or wild beast fighters, were 

 a class apart from other gladiators. So far as our meagre 

 supply of information goes, these men did not meet a royal 

 tiger as a Ghoorka now does ; that is to say, did not trust 

 to perfect nerve, training, and activity, to avoid the brute's 

 onset, and slay it by striking at advantage ; they appeared 

 in armor and actually fought with sword or spear. Con- 

 sidering the style in which lions and tigers combat, one can- 

 not divine the use made of any defensive panoply, which, 

 so far as we can judge, would seem to have been more of 

 an encumbrance than an aid. An iron sword two feet 

 long (for the much-talked-of Iberian steel was most likely 

 only a good quality of untempered metal) could hardly 

 have availed a hampered man in a hand-to-hand struggle 

 of this kind, except in case of accidents that must have 

 been of rare occurrence. Julius Caesar's Thessalian horse- 

 men chased giraffes around the arena until they were ex- 

 hausted, and then killed them with a dagger thrust at the 

 junction of the spine and head ; but it is safe to say that 

 no bestiarius armed with a venabulum went through any 

 performances of this kind with a black rhinoceros. Yet 

 every formidable animal on earth perished upon " a Roman 

 holiday." That is, however, all we know. 



It is now the fashion to say that lions are such timid 

 G 



