ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 225 



fifty -four at the battle of Magnesia * against the Romans, who had but 

 sixteen, without profiting much in the main by this great superiority in 

 the number of his elephants, since he was vanquished in both engage- 

 ments. 



Phyrrus I. brought elephants into Italy in the year of Rome 472, 

 and as he had disembarked at Tarentum, the Romans gave these strange 

 animals the name of Lucanian oxen. They were few in number and 

 had been taken by Phyrrus from Demetrius. Curius Dentalus took 

 four of them from Phyrrus and brought them to Rome for the ceremony 

 of his triumph in 479. They were the first that had been seen there, 

 but they very soon became a common object. 



Metellus having overcome the" Carthaginians in Sicily in the year 

 502, had their elephants brought to Rome upon rafts, to the number of 

 a hundred and four, according to Orosius ; a hundred and twenty, ac- 

 cording to Seneca ; a hundred and thirty, according to Eutropius ; a 

 hundred and forty-two, according to Pliny ; which, according to the ac- 

 count of Varro, cited by Pliny, were all slaughtered in the Circus, as 

 the Romans did not know what to do with them. 



Hannibal brought thirty-seven with him into Italy in 534 f, which 

 with one exception were all destroyed at the battle of TrebbiaJ. 

 His brother Hasdrubal, brought a fresh supply ; and when the latter 

 was defeated on the Metauro in 558, the drivers of the elephants were 

 obliged to kill several of them with their own hands. 



Scipio Nasica and Publius Lentulus, exhibited elephants in the 

 Circus during their edileship in 584 §. Claudius Pulcher exhibited 

 an elephant fight in 655. Twenty years after this, the two brothers, 

 Lucius and Marcus Lentulus, during their edileship exhibited them 

 fighting with bulls. According to Pliny, Pompey exhibited twenty; 

 eighteen according to Dion Cassius, on the occasion of his second con- 

 sulship in 700 ; and Caesar, forty on the occasion of his third consul- 

 ship in 708. Pompey yoked some to his chariot when he triumphed 

 for the conquest of Africa. Germanicus exhibited some that danced 

 grotesquely. It was at the games celebrated by Nero, in honour of 

 his mother, that elephants were first exhibited dancing on ropes, and 

 performing a number of extraordinary feats of skill. Elian tells us 

 expressly with regard to those of Germanicus, that the elephants 

 trained in that way were born at Rome, whence it appears they bred 

 there " at the time that Germanicus, the grandson of Tiberius Caesar, 

 gave a public show of gladiators ; there were at Rome several large 

 elephants of both sexes from which many others were produced. 

 While the latter were yet young, and while their joints were coalescing 

 and acquiring consistency and their tender limbs assuming firmness 

 and solidity, a man who had attained to great skill in the management 

 of their tempers trained them to the performance of a very marvellous 

 species of exercise." — Elian, de Anim. lib. ii, cap. xi. 



Columella speaks still more positively to this fact of the propagation 

 of elephants at Rome. " India has been long celebrated for pro- 



* Livy, lib. xxxviii. cap. xxxix. + Eutropius, lib. iii, chap. riii. 



+ Polybius, lib. iii, cap. xiv. § Livy, lib. liv, cap. xix. 



