BOOK VIII. XIX. 51-XX1. 54 



crowd. Yet a person who discharges a weapon at 

 him but fails to wound him he seizes and whirling 

 him round flings him on the ground, but does not 

 wound him. It is said that when a mother lion is 

 fighting in defence of her cubs she fixes the gaze of 

 her eyes upon the ground so as not to flinch from the 

 hunting spears. Otherwise hons are devoid of craft 

 and suspicion, and they do not look at you with eyes 

 askance and disUke being looked at in a similar way. 

 The behef has been held that a dying hon bites the 

 earth and bestows a tear upon death. Yet though 

 of such a nature and of such ferocity this animal is 

 frightened by wheels turning round and by empty 

 chariots, and even more by the crested combs and 

 the crowing of cocks, but most of all by fires. The 

 only malady to which it is hable is that of distaste 

 for food ; in this condition it can be cured by insult- 

 ing treatment, the pranks of monkeys tied to it 

 driving it to fury ; and then tasting their blood acts 

 as a remedy. 



XX. A fight with several hons at once was first Lions in tht 

 bestoMcd on Rome by Quintus Scaevola," son of "'"""* 

 PubUus, when consular aedile, but the first of aU who 

 exhibited a combat of 100 maned Uons was Lucius 



SuUa, later dictator, in his praetorship.* After SuUa 

 Pompey the Great showed in the Circus 600, including 

 315 with manes, and Caesar when dictator*^ 400. 



XXI. Capturing lions was once a difficult task, Thecaptwe 

 chiefly eff^ected by means of pitfalls. In the principate ifuo^r!^!"^ 

 of Claudius accident taught a Gaetulian shepherd a 

 method that was almost one to be ashamed of in the 



case of a wild animal of this nature : when it charged 

 he flung a cloak against its onset — a feat that was 

 immediately transferred to the arena as a show, — the 



41 



