GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE LION. 15 



recorded by Herodotus that the baggage camels of the army of Xerxes were attacked by Lions in the 

 country of the Pseonians and Crestoncei, on their march from Acanthus (near the peninsula of Mount 

 Athos) to Therme, afterwards Thessalonica (now Salonika). The camels alone, it is stated, were 

 attacked, other beasts remaining untouched as well as men. The same historian also observes 

 that the limits in Europe within which Lions were then found were the Nessus or Nestus, 

 a Thracian river running to Abdera, and the Achelous, which waters Acarnania. Aristotle 

 mentions Europe as abundant in Lions, and especially in that part which is between the Achelous 

 and Nessus, apparently copying the statement of Herodotus. Pliny does the same, and adds 

 that the Lions of Europe are stronger than those of Africa and Syria. Pausanias copies the 

 same story as to the attack of the Lions on the Camels of Xerxes ; and he states, moreover, that 

 Lions often descended into the plains at the foot of Olympus, which separates Macedonia 

 from Thessaly, and that Polydamas, a celebrated athlete, a contemporary of Darius Nothus, slew 

 one of them, although he was unarmed. The passage in Oppian, which some have considered as 

 indicating the existence of Lions up to the banks of the Danube, fails, as an authority, for placing 

 the Lion in that locality, because, as Cuvier observes, the context shows plainly that the name of Ista 

 is there applied to an Armenian river, either by an error of the author or of the transcribers. " 



Nor is Europe the only part of the world from which the form of the Lion has disappeared. 

 Lions are no longer to be found in Egypt, Palestine, or Syria, where they were once evidently far 

 from uncommon. The frequent allusion to the Lion in Scripture, and the various Hebrew 

 terms there used to distinguish the different ages and the sex of the animal, prove a familiarity with 

 the habits of the race. Even in Asia generally, with the exception of some countries between 

 India and Persia, and some districts of Arabia, these magnificent beasts have become comparatively 

 rare ; and this is not to be wondered at. To say nothing of the immense draughts on the race 

 for the Roman arena and they were not inconsiderable, for there were a thousand Lions killed at 

 Rome in the space of forty years population and civilisation have gradually driven them within 

 narrower limits, and their destruction has been rapidly worked in modern times since firearms have 

 been used against them instead of the bow and the spear. The African Lion is annually retiring 

 before the persecution of man farther and farther from the Cape. Mr. Bennett * says of the Lion : 

 " His true countiy is Africa, in the vast and untrodden wilds of which, from the immense deserts of 

 the North to the trackless forests of the South, he reigns supreme and uncontrolled." In the sandy 

 deserts of Arabia, in some of the wild districts of Persia, and in the jungles of Guzerat, in India, he 

 maintains a precarious footing ; but from the classic soil of Greece, as well as from the whole of Asia 

 Minor, both of which were once exposed to his ravages, he has been utterly dislodged and extirpated. 



The fearful custom, so common afterwards among the Romans, of having many encaged Lions, "fierce 

 with dark keeping," to use Bacon's expression, for judicial as well as sporting purposes, was evidently 

 an old custom in the East ; for we learn from the book of Daniel that the kings of Babylon kept a 

 41 den of Lions " into which offenders were thrown alive. Judging, however, from the Biblical 

 narrative, the Chaldeans had a far less revolting manner of killing criminals than the Romans, for 

 they seem to have used the Lions simply as executioners; to have cast in the victim, and then to 

 have fastened up the entrance of the den, drawing a decent veil on the horrible scene taking 

 place within. They did not, like the Romans, curry favour with the masses by making the death 

 of their victims into a spectacle, at which all classes had their love of excitement gratified by the 

 sight of men and women torn and mangled and devoured by raging beasts, to the accompaniment of 

 small talk and flirtation. 



As to the former occurrence of the Lion in places where it is now absent, we may instance its 

 evident commonness in Palestine. One of the earliest Lion stories occurs in the history of the 

 Hebrew Hercules, who, when travelling with his father and mother to Timnath, "came to the 

 vineyards of Timnath : and, behold, a young Lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the Lord 

 came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing 

 in his hand : but he told not his father or his mother what he had done."t 



Every one will remember David's account of his encounter with the tawny savage in the Syrian 



* "Tower Menagerie." t Judges xiv. 5, 6. 



