CYNEGETICA, II. 156-176 



beit the %pacious glories of our fatherland we shall 

 sing in due order with sweet Pimplean " song ; now I 

 turn back to sing of glorious hunting. 



There is a terrible breed of deadly Bulls which 

 they call Bisons,'' since they are natives of Bistonian" 

 Thrace. And they have forms of this sort. Over 

 their shoulders they have bristUng hair on their 

 fleshy necks as also about their tender jaws ; con- 

 spicuous form they have, even as the king of beasts, 

 the shaggy, tawny, fierce-eyed Lion. Sharp are the 

 curved points of their horns, hke unto bent hooks of 

 bronze ; but the points of their hateful horns, unlike 

 those of other cattle, incline athwart to face one 

 another,'* and their deadly daggers are sloped back- 

 wards and look up to the sky. Therefore when 

 they come upon and attack any man or Mild beast, 

 they lift their victim on high. Their tongue is 

 narrow, but exceeding rough, even as the de\ice of 

 iron for devoiu-ing iron ; and with the tongue they 

 draw blood from the flesh and Uck it. 



Moreover the earth breeds the race of swift-footed 



cornibus ita in se flexis ut non sint iitilia puprnae ; rf. Solin. 

 xl. 10. Pau-san. x. 13 gives an account of the capture of the 

 Paeonian Bison by means of a pit. The Bison with short 

 stout horns is not to be confounded with the Aurochs, Bos 

 taurus {B. primigeniiui), the Latin urus : Caes. B.G. vi. -28 ; 

 Verg. G. ii. 37+, iii. 53-?; Macrob. vi. 4-. 33, of which the 

 last was killed in Poland in 16-27. Bison and urus are men- 

 tioned together Plin. \iii. 38 iubatos bisontes excellentique 

 et vi et velocitate uros ; Senec. Hipp. 64 f. villosi terga 

 bisontes Latisque feri cornibus uri. 



* A pseudo-et>-moiog}'. The Bistones dwelt on S. coast 

 of Thrace nejir Abdera, Strab. 331 fr. 4-1-. 



^ A. 499 b 31 dixa-\a 5' dfia Kai x<m't»7I' ^x'"'''"*' **' Kepara Svo 

 KeKap-uiva, tls ai'To. farty fvia rwv iv^p, olov b ^6va<roi, 8i 

 yiverat. repi ttjp riatoj-tav Kai ttjit MotSt/ti;*' ; Plin. vlii. 40 

 (quoted above). 



(i9 



