CHAPTER XXXV 
FISH—VIVARIA—THE FIRST INSTANCE OF POACHING 
WE find in two important sources of our knowledge of Assyria 
(proper) references to beasts or fishes of the sea and of the river. 
The first occurs in The Broken Column of Tiglath-Pileser I., 
in whose reign Assyria attained to high prosperity. This king, 
the first of that country to leave behind a detailed record of his 
achievements, was, as we have seen, a mighty hunter. After 
recounting his many military campaigns he adds in Column 
IV. a list of the beasts and fish which he had taken in his hunting 
expeditions. The text runs :— 
1. The gods Ninurta and Nergal, who loved his priesthood, 
(the task) of hunting in the field, 
2. Entrusted unto him, and in ships of the land of Arvad 
3. he sailed, and he slew a mighty dolphin in the sea.! 
Then follows a catalogue raisonné of his famous Zoo, in which 
were collected the elephants, lions, mountain-goats, stags, 
dromedaries, which he captured himself or obtained (antedating 
Hagenbeck) ‘‘ through merchants whom he had sent out,’’ 
and other numerous “ wild beasts and fowl of the Heaven 
that fly, the work of his hands, their names together with 
(the number of) the beasts which my ( ) did not 
record ... have I recorded.’’ In addition to these, of 
1 Annals of the Kings of Assyria, by Budge and King (1903), p. 138. 
‘ Dolphin ’ is the translation of Nakhivi, doubtless from the same root, which 
in Arabic is Nakhava, to spout, and occurs in the same sense in Syriac and 
Ethiopic. In view of the evidence of Pliny and other authors as to the former 
existence of the whale in the Mediterranean, I suggested to Professor King 
an alternative rendering of nakhivi as ‘ whale,’ and he informed me he accepts 
my suggestion as the more probable of the two. 
373 
