AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



271 



In the year 46 before Christ, Caesar put forth, in an am- 

 phitheatre covered over with a purple awning, four hundred 

 maned lions, several wild bulls fighting with men, and 

 twenty elephants which were attacked by five hundred in- 

 fantry. On the evening of his triumph, he returned home 

 preceded b_y elephants carrying torches. 



We may imagine the unbounded opulence of the men 

 who could afford such spectacles — the eagerness of allied 

 kings to gratify them — the crowds of human beings em- 

 ployed in obtaining the animals exhibited to the people! It 

 is not less astonishing that it was possible to collect such a 

 multitude of large animals and beasts of prey. 



Yet in this kind of munificence the great Romans of the 

 republic were afterwards outdone by the emperors. From 

 an inscription, in honour of Augustus, found at Ancyra, we 

 learn, that this prince caused three thousand five hundred 

 wild beasts to be slain before the people. On one occasion 

 he had water brought into the circus of Flaminius, and 

 showed thirty-six live crocodiles torn to pieces by other 

 savage animals. Two hundred and sixty-eight lions were 

 killed at this entertainment. There was besides a serpent 

 fift}'' cubits long, a python from Africa, and a royal tiger 

 confined in a cage, the first that had been seen in Rome. 

 Augustus, before he became emperor, at his triumph over 

 Cleopatra, had a reindeer and a hippopotamus slain in the 

 circus. Germanicus, at his triumph over the Germans, 

 brought out elephants that had been taught to dance. Cali- 

 gula gave four hundred bears and four hundred panthers to 

 be killed. Claudius, at the dedication of the Pantheon, dis- 

 played four live royal tigers. A mosaic pavement which 

 has lasted till our time, represent these animals of their 

 natural size. The same emperor having been informed 

 that a whale was stranded in the harbour of Ostia, repaired 

 thither, and engaged the monster with his galleys. The 

 animal was probably a large species of dolphin, the orca. 

 Galba showed an elephant that went up on a tight rope to 

 the summit of the theatre, with a Roman horseman on his 

 back. These elephants were instructed when they were 

 young, for they were born in Rome, ^lian says so posi- 

 tively, in speaking of the elephants of Germanicus. Mr. 

 Corse Scott has shown, in opposition to the opinion of 

 EufTon, that elephants, by taking certain precautions, will 

 breed in a state of domestication. But the fact was known 

 in Italy from the time of Columella. 



This lavish expenditure continued during the first four 

 centuries of the Roman empire. Titus, at the dedication 

 of his baths, placed in the circus nine thousand animals, 

 and exhibited cranes fighting together. Domitian gave 

 hunts by torch-light, where the two-horned rhinoceros ap- 

 peared, — an animal with which Sparrman has made us ac- 

 quainted only within the last sixty years, though it is en- 



graved on the medals of Domitian. In these games a wo- 

 man fought with a lion. An elephant, after having trampled 

 to death a bull, went and knelt to the emperor; a royal 

 tiger killedalion; and wild cattle dragged chariots. Martial 

 has occupied a whole book with the description of the 

 games of Domitian. In his epigrams naturalists will find 

 many curious hints. 



Trajan, after his victory over Deceballus, king of Parthia, 

 gave entertainments that lasted three-and-twenty days. 

 According to Dio Cassius, eleven thousand animals perished 

 at them. But the accounts of historians are much less in- 

 teresting, than a mosaic, executed by order of that emperor. 

 In this valuable fragment, which was discovered at Pales- 

 trina, the ancient Prseneste, the animals of Egypt and 

 Ethiopia are figured with the names under each of them. 

 The lovver part represents the inundation of the Nile. 

 The forms of the ibis, the crocodile, and the hippopotamus, 

 are very exactly given. But the hippopotamus has been 

 very ill described by the Roman naturalists, who have only 

 copied from Herodotus. On the upper part of the mosaic 

 there appear among the mountains of Ethiopia the giraffe, 

 under the name of nabis; apes, and various reptiles; in all 

 thirty animals, easily recognised, and whose nomenclature 

 is thus determined. 



Antoninus, the successor of Adrian, conforming to the 

 established usage likewise exhibited games. He had croco- 

 diles, hipoppotamuses, strepsiceroses (antelopes), and hyae- 

 nas, different from those described by Agatarchis. 



Marcus Aurelius abhorred such spectacles, but his son 

 Commodus resumed them with fury; with his own hand he 

 slew a tiger, a hippopotamus, and an elephant. He sent 

 into the circus a great number of ostriches, and as they ran 

 about cut off their heads vi'ith crescent-shaped blades, fixed 

 on the points of arrows. Herodian, who relates the fact, 

 says, that the birds, after being decapitated ran about some 

 time. The experiment has been successfully repeated on 

 ducks. Septimus Severus, in the tenth year of his reign, 

 at the rejoicings on the marriage of Caracalla, made four hun- 

 dred animals come out of a machine, and among them some 

 wild asses and bisons. At the marriage of Heliogabalus, 

 there were chariots drawn by all kinds of wild beasts. 



The most expensive and most curious assemblages of ani- 

 mals were those of the Gordians. The first emperor of 

 this name in one day exposed to view a thousand panthers. 

 Probus, one of their successors, had trees planted in the 

 circus. More than a thousand ostriches, and a countless 

 throng of various creatures were seen running about in this 

 artificial forest. 



So long as the Roman empire existed in the west, similar 

 displays were continued. In spite of the prohibitions of 

 Constantine, there were some even under Christian empe- 



