270 



THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 



phrastus, the orange-tree of our time; but seems to have 

 been a species of Thu)'a, brought from Cyrenaica. They 

 made use not only of the trunk but of some knots that grew 

 out near the root. When such pieces could be got of a large 

 size, they were sold excessively dear. Cethegus paid for a 

 table 1,400,000 sesterces, about £11,000. Even Seneca, 

 with all his outcry against luxury, had some tables that cost 

 a most exorbitant sum. These pieces were distinguished by 

 their colour, and by the way they were veined. Each va- 

 riety had a different name. Ebony also was employed, a 

 kind of wood first introduced into Italy by Pompey, after 

 his victories over the pirates. 



Building. — A great deal of marble was used in building. 

 It was brought from the most distant countries, and there 

 were even several of which the quarries are now lost. 

 Thus the marbles denoted by the names of vert antique 

 and rouge antique, are so termed because they are found 

 only in ancient structures. It was in searching for such frag- 

 ments among some ruins that Pompeii was discovered. 



Luxury of the Empire. — If from the luxury of indi- 

 viduals we turn to the luxury displayed in public festivals, 

 we find still greater matter of astonishment. One would 

 hardly venture to repeat what is stated in ancient writers, 

 yet there appears no ground for supposing that thej' exag- 

 gerated, seeing how closely their accounts agree; when we 

 reflect, too, that they were nearly all eye-witnesses of what 

 they relate, and that they would not have attempted to 

 bring forward assertions opposed to the knowledge of all 

 their contemporaries. Messrs. Beckman,Mongez, and Cu- 

 vier, have made very extensive inquirfcs about the animals 

 exhibited or slain in the circus. Such inquiries ought not 

 to be regarded as merely curious. In fact, it is of impor- 

 tance to the naturalist, and for several reasons, to know the 

 date of the first appearance of these animals, the countries 

 of which the)' were natives, and their numbers. For ex- 

 ample, without ascertaining these points, a naturalist would 

 often be apt to mistake the bones of foreign quadrupeds for 

 true fossil remains, and thus to mistake transported soil for 

 regular formations. 



Curius Dcntatus first showed foreign animals at Rome in 

 the year 273 before Christ. It will be recollected, that ele- 

 phants were first brought to Greece during the conquests of 

 Alexander. Aristotle saw them, and wrote about them a 

 great deal better than Buffon has since done. These ele- 

 phants, and some others sent afterwards, came into the pos- 

 session of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had taken them 

 from Demetrius Poliorcetes. Pyrrhus having been himself 

 defeated by the Romans, four of his war-elephants fell into 

 the power of the conquerors. These elephants, after hav- 

 ing been led in the triumphal possession of Curius, were 

 slain before the people. Four-and-twenty years later, Me- 



tellus having gained a great victory over the Carthaginians, 

 captured a hundred and forty-two elephants, which were all 

 slain with arrows in the circus. It was evidently good po- 

 licy, in the time of Curius Dentalus, to put to death some 

 of these animals, in order to lessen the fear the sight of them 

 had at first produced. There were not the same reasons for 

 the second massacre; but, without doubt, the Romans had 

 no desire to introduce elephants into their armies, and thus 

 oblige themselves to alter tactics of wiiich they had proved 

 the excellence. As little were they inclined to make a pre- 

 sent of tliese elephants to any of the kings their allies, from 

 an apprehension of adding too much to tlieir force. Sixty- 

 six j^ears after the triumph of Metellus, in the year before 

 Christ 1S6, Marcus Ful^ius, to absolve himself from a vow 

 he had made in the iEtolian war, exhibited panthers and 

 lions. These animals might have come from Africa; but 

 perhaps he had obtained them from Asia Minor, where, at 

 this time, some were still to be found. The people getting 

 a taste for these shows, Scipio Nasica and Publius Lentulus 

 gave them a sight of several elephants, forty bears, and fifty- 

 three panthers. QuintusScajvola had several lions fighting 

 against men. Sylla had more than an hundred male lions. 

 In the year 5S before Christ, ^milius Scaurus, during his 

 ajdilship, distinguished himself not only by the number of 

 animals be brought out, but also bj;^ presenting several that , 

 had never before been seen in Rome. In these spectacles 

 the first hippopotamus appeared. There were also five 

 live crocodiles, i\\& hundred panthers, and, more strange 

 still, the bones of the animal to which, it was said, Andro- 

 meda had been exposed. Tiiese bones had been brought 

 from the town of Joppa (Jaffa), on the coast of Palestine. 

 There were among them vertebras a foot and a half long, 

 and a bone not under six-and-thirty feet in length, probably 

 the under jaw of a whale. In the year 55 before Clirisf, 

 Pompey at the inauguration of his theatre, displayed a lynx, 

 a cephus from Ethiopia (a species of ape), a one-horned 

 rhinoceros, twenty elephants fighting with men, four hun- 

 dred and ten panthers, and six hundred lions, wliercof three 

 hundred and fifteen had manes. All the sovereigns of 

 Europe together could not now produce such a number. 

 Cicero, who was present at these games, speaks of them 

 with great disdain, and says the people at last took pity on 

 the elephants. In the 4Slh year before Christ, Anthony 

 exhibited lions harnessed to a chariot; it was the first time 

 these animals had been seen so employed, but they were not 

 thefii'st that had been tamed. A Carthaginian, named Ilanno, 

 had a lion that followed him through that city like a dog. 

 His trouble was ill rewarded, for his countrymen banished 

 him, judging that a man who had been able to subdue a fero- 

 cious beast, must have been gifted with some secret power 

 by which he might perhaps have overcome themselves. 



