334 THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA 



of horse, whose bones have been found at some 

 places in great numbers. The caverns and clefts 

 in the hills were tenanted by lions and hyenas, 

 lynxes and wild cats. The woods were haunted by 

 brown bears, badgers, wolves and foxes. Strangest 

 of all the denizens of the region were the huge 

 pachyderms mastodons, elephants, and rhinoceroses, 

 including that northern form, the mammoth. Beavers 

 built their dams across the smaller streams, while 

 the hippopotamus disported himself in the rivers, 

 which were likewise tenanted by several species of 

 aquatic tortoises. There is occasionally something 

 strangely incongruous in the circumstances under 

 which the remains of these primeval creatures are 

 found in places that have long been known only 

 from their association with the course of Roman 

 history. One of the most singular examples of this 

 contrast was seen in the recent unearthing of a well- 

 preserved tusk of a hippopotamus a few inches under- 

 neath the pavement of the atrium of the Vestal 

 Virgins in the Forum Romanum. There can be 

 little doubt that the main part of this curiously 

 varied fauna had established itself in Italy long 

 before the volcanoes first began their eruptions and 

 that many of its most singular and characteristic 

 members continued to live on during the volcanic 

 period, for their remains have been exhumed from 

 some of the later deposits. A few like the otter, 

 the mole, the hare and the fox have remained in this 

 region down to the present day. 



It was after the Campagna had become a land- 

 surface, tenanted by this remarkable assemblage of 



