FELIS SPELA‘A. 167 
down into the “ozamov yévoc,” “the rare animal” of the other; he adds also that the 
wild beasts of Hurope are more courageous than those of Asia or Africa. 
We have no mention of the animal in Europe from this time recorded by any writer 
down to the year a.p. 80 or 100, when it is mentioned by Dio Chrysostom Rhetor’ in his 
‘Essay on Beauty.’ “The honorable,” he writes, “have vanished away in time, as they say 
the Lions have done which formerly dwelt in Europe, for there are no longer any more ; but 
formerly they dwelt in the district of Macedonia and in other places.* Philostratus, also, 
writing in his ‘ Lives of the Sophists,’ about the year 220 a.p., relates that Agathion, the 
athlete, who lived in the time of Herodes Atticus, 104—180, a.p., complained that he could 
not rival Hercules because there were no Lions in Acarnania. It is therefore clear that the 
Lion had deserted Europe before the end of the first century after Christ ; or, in other words, 
that the “rare animal’ of Aristotle had become extinct during the four hundred years that 
followed his time. It is, of course, impossible to fix the exact date, just as in the parallel 
case of the Brown Bear in Scotland or the Beaver in South Wales. 
In the literature of Rome there is nothing that would lead to the supposition that the 
Lion lived in Italy during the Historic period. 
“* At rabide tigres absunt et seva leonum 
Semina.’’—Georg. ii, 151. 
According to the high authority of Sir Cornewall Lewis, it is not even alluded to in Italian 
mythology.* » 
§ 3. Lvidence afforded by Myths. \n bringing Mythology to bear upon the question of 
the former existence of the Lion in countries where it was extinct before the Historical 
Period, we are justified only by the high probability of its truth, afforded by the fossil 
remains on the one hand and by history on the other. The evidence, indeed, afforded by 
the myths is so strong that Sir G. C. Lewis has admitted its value without knowing of 
the corroborative witness of the fossil remains. ‘That eminent critic sagaciously inferred 
1 Aristotle, ‘ Nat. Hist.,’ edit. Schneider, lib. vi, 28, 1: 
Sirdavov yap 75 yévoc ro rev AcdvTwv éort, Kal OK év TOAAG YiyveTat TOT, AAA Tie Evpwarne 
amaonce év Ty meTagv Tov “AyeAwou kal tov Nésaov rorapov. ! 
Lib. viii, 27, 6.—Ere 02 Afovreg piv év 79 Evpwy paddXov, kat rie Evpwrne év re petald to7w 
rov AxeAwov kat rov Nésoov. Tapddaduc Oo: év 7 Aoia’ év d& TH Kupwiry ob yivovra. “Owe & 
Ta piv dyola aypwwrepa ev rH Acta, dvopedtepa 6: wavta Ta év TH Evpwiry, todvpoppérara OF ra év 
AiBiy’ Kat Aéyerai tic Tapomia, bre act Peper Te AiBby Kawvdv. 
2 ¢Orationes,’ edit. J. J. Reiske, Orat. 21, IIepi KaAXove, sec. 269: 
ExAkAduract 7 Xpdvy of KaAol, dtov on pact Tove A~ovTac mae Tove év TH Evpwmy’ ou yap 
tt auT@Y Elva TO yévoc, TpdTEpov & Hoar, Kal wept Makedoviay kal év addoic Té701LC. 
3 «Vit. Apoll.,’ lib. i, cap. xv. 
4 «Notes and Queries,’ second series, vols. viii, ix, ‘‘ Lions in Greece.” 
