THE ANTIQUITY OF THE LION IN GREECE. 063 



allclod in European In do -Germanic lanouag-e.s, and tliis anti(iuity of 

 the name makes it probable that it originall}' denoted an indigenous 

 animal which could not have been other than the lion. But the 

 existence of that animal in historic time is not thus proved, and the 

 fact that philological studies leave us uncertain as to whether the name 

 originally designated an indigenous animal leads us now to turn to 

 zoology " for a possible solution of the problem. 



Likewise, if we search among* the place names for traces of the 

 existence of the lion we gain nothing. True, the word Xecov (leon) 

 occurs as the name of a cape near Eretria and Lebena* in Crete, ))ut 

 these names certainly do not refer to the animal as native to the region, 

 but merelv indicate that the rock suggests a lion in shape.'' What, 

 then, IS the attitude of zoologists and paleontologists toward this 

 (|uestion ^ 



C 1. Sundevall'' expresses himself as follows: '' From all this it 

 becomes very pro])able that in 330 u. c;. lions were still encountered in 

 Macedonia, though ver}^ rare." It is as little doubted by A. Newton,'^ 

 Dupont, Nehring, von Zittel (see below), and others. Dawkins' also 

 refers, in agreement Avith Lewis, ^ to Xenophon^' (from about i2S until 

 after 355 b. c.) in regard to the occurrence of the lion in historic time 

 in South Thracia, and adds: "It ma}' have extended far over the 

 Balkan Range into the valle}- of the Danube within the historic period 

 of Greece.*"' Flower and Lydekker'' follow Dawkins and Sanford 

 without reserve. 



1902) thinks it possibly a word borrowed from a non-Greek linguistic sphere. The 

 primitive relationship between the European Indo-Germanic lion names is of late 

 upheld particularly by O. Schrader (Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschiehte, p. :362 sq., 

 Jena, 1890, comp. Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde, vol. i, p. 

 508 sq., Strassburg, 1901 ). I am indebted for the linguistic references to Dr. Oswald 

 Richter, assistant in the Royal Ethnographical Museum at Dresden. 



<i x\s did already Forsteniann, Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Sprachforschung, 1852, 

 vol. I p. 495. 



''Lebena itself, which was a Pha-nician colony, is named after the cape. Com- 

 l)are Hebrew labi, "lion;" comp. J. J. Egli, Nom. geogr., 2d ed., p. 531, Leipzig, 

 1898, and H. Lewy, Die semitischen Fremdwiirter ini Griechischen, p. 7, Berlin, 

 1895. 



-Philostratus expressly mentions Ae'cj^as well as cipaK-Mr among the playsof nature: 

 ' Nature causes mountains and mountain peaks to resemble animals as . . . the 

 Cretan lion . . .'" Comp. A. Fick in Bezzenberger's Beitriigen, vol. x.xi, p. 265, 

 1896. 



'' Die Tierarten des Aristoteles, p. 47 sq., Stockliolm, 1863. 



^On the Zoology of Ancient Europe, p. 7, London, 1862. 



/British Pleistocene Mammalia, pt. A, p. xxxiv, 1878. 



!/Loc. cit., vol. VHi. p. 82, 1859. 



/' Cynegaticus xi, 1. 



«See also Dawkins and Sanford, British Pleistocene Mammalia, ])(. iii, p. 166, 1869. 



i Introduction to tlie Study of Mammals, p. 504, 1891. 



SM 1903 43 



