HALIEUTICA, II. 338-366 



are blunted by their force. Greatly her fierce heart 

 burns and is stirred, until the Crayfish rushes on her 

 with his long claws and seizes her by the tendon in 

 the midst of her throat, and ehngs and holds her firm 

 as with brazen tongs, and lets her not go though eager 

 to escape. She, distressed by his violence and vexed 

 by pain, wheels every way her crooked body, and 

 speedily she throws herself about the prickly back of 

 the Crayfish and enfolds him and impales herself on 

 the spine and sharp points of his shell, and, full of 

 many wounds, perishes self-destroyed, dead by her 

 own folly. As when a man skilled in the work of slay- 

 ing wild beasts," when the people are gathered in the 

 house-encircled market-place,^ awaits the Leopard *= 

 maddened by the cracking of the whip and with long- 

 edged spear stands athwart her path ; she, though 

 she beholds the edge of sharp iron, mantles in swelling 

 fury and receives in her throat, as it were in a spear- 

 stand, the brazen lance ; even so wTath slays the 

 unhappy Muraena in her folly, overcome by self-dealt 

 wounds. Such strife, I ween, upon the dry land a 

 Serpent and a prickly Hedgehog wage, when they 

 meet in the woods ; for enmity is their lot also. 

 The Hedgehog, seeing in front of him the deadly 

 reptile, fences himself vvith his close-set bristhng 

 spines and rolls himself into a ball, protecting his limbs 

 under his fence \sithin which he crawls. The Serpent, 

 rushing upon him, first assails him vvith his venomous 



L 2-2), in which men, bestlarii (Cic. Pro Serf. 64), opposed 

 wild beasts in the arena. PHn. viii. 18 fF. 131 ; Juv. iv. 100. 



* In the amphitheatre : schol., 4v a-yopq. kvk\w&€v oUrifjuiTa 

 tjcovro. Cf. Poll. vii. U5 ; Claud. In Ruf. ii. 394. 



' Dio Cass. Ixxviii. 31 Aoi'/ctos YipiaKiWiavoi . . . tots Kai 

 ipKTCf Kai TrapSdXei XtaifTj re Kal \foyTi afia fiovos awjivex^V- 



313 



