242 WILD ANIMALS. 



draughts of water, whicli suddenly cause his death. ; for the peas 

 soon begin to swell with the water, and not long after the 

 Egyptians find him dead on the shore, blown up as if killed with 

 the strongest poison. 



" The oftener the river-horse goes on shore, the better hopes 

 have the Egyptians of a sufficient swelling or increase of the 

 Nile." 



The behemoth, as described in the book of Job, so accurately 

 applies to the hippopotamus that the identity of the two animals 

 has been accepted as a matter of fact, and Linnseus, in his 

 " Systema Nature," calls the hippopotamus " Behemot Jobi." 



The hippopotamus waS known and exhibited to the Eomans. 

 It is evident that no trouble or outlay on their part was ever 

 spared to procure at some time or another every, animal that was 

 known to exist, the rarer and more uncommon it was, the greater 

 glory to the Emperor who exhibited it or slew it as an incident 

 of "a holiday." How these various animals were transported 

 from their native homes is a question that has not received a 

 satisfactory answer, but the fact remains that, like the lion, 

 elephant, and giraffe, the hippopotamus and crocodile were made 

 to add their share' to the Eoman craving for amusement. 

 They were first brought to Eome, on the authority of Pliny, by 

 .(Emilius Scaurus, 58 B.C., during his edileship, when one of the 

 former and five of the latter were exhibited at the games in a 

 temporary canal built for their accommodation. On another 

 authority, though one not so reliable, Augustus C^sar was the 

 first to exhibit a hippopotamus and rhinoceros to the Roman 

 people in the year 29 B.o. as an appropriate memorial of his victory 

 over Cleopatra. The next account of the animal being exhibited 

 is given by Oapitolinus, who states that Antoninus Pius imported 

 them with various other foreign animals between a.d. 130 and 

 180, Commodus (a.d. 180 and 192), in his character of Gladiator, 

 slew as many as five of these creatures at different times in the 

 amphitheatre. Hehogabalus (a.d. 218-22) displayed some of these 

 animals in public as part of his state. Firmus, the Egyptian 

 pretender to the Empire in the time of -Aurelian (a.d. 273), 

 distinguished himself by riding on a hippopotamus. But this 



