ON THE BONES OF THE HIP^POPOTAMtTS, 309 



Julian. (Ammianus Marcellinus, book xxii, chap. 15.) This is 

 further confirmed by Themistius, in his twentieth oration. 



It is from Ihe circumstance of their having confounded the addition 

 of Gylius with the text of JElian, that Aldrovandus and Jonston at- 

 tributed to ^Elian a description which Gylius had taken from Diodorus 

 without acknowledgment, (^lian. Gylii, book xi, chap. 45). 



Even the description of Achilles Tatius, an Alexandrian author of 

 the fourth century, pointed out by Schneider as being more correct 

 than his piredecessors, is not entirely exempt from errors. " The hip- 

 popotamus/' says he, " resembles the horse in its belly and its feet, 

 except that in the latter the hoofs are cloven. Its size is equal to 

 that of the largest ox ; its tail is short, and, like the rest of its body, is 

 without hair ; its head is round, and by no means small ; its jaws are 

 similar to those of the horse ; its chin is large ; its nostrils are very 

 much distended, and give forth a burning sulphur ; its canine teeth 

 are bent like those of the horse, but three times the size of the 

 latter*." 



The ancient artists have succeeded in giving a better idea of this 

 animal than either the naturalists or the historians. It is represented 

 in a very distinguishable manner, with the ibis, the crocodile, and the 

 lotus plant, on the plinth of the statue of the Nile, which formerly 

 ornamented the Belvidere at Rome, and which is now in the Museum 

 of Arts ; the minutiae of the feet and teeth alone are there deficient 

 in accuracy. 



The Mosaic of Palestrinum, which the taste of the ancients led 

 them to decorate with figures of the animals of Egypt and Ethiopia, 

 presents us with three excellent figures of the hippopotamus towards 

 the left base. Two of them are pierced with arrows by the negro 

 hunters, and one is half immersed in the river ; but unlike most of 

 the others, these figures are unaccompanied by a name. 



Again we find a figure of it, and as in the former instance, accom- 

 panied by the crocodile and the lotus, on a carved stone in the cabinet 

 of the Duke of Orleans. 



The medals of Adrian, so frequently representing Egypt and its 

 productions, also present us v/ith figures of the hippopotamus, the 

 crocodile, and of the Nile. One of these medals may be seen in the 

 Augustan History of Angeloni (plate 149, fig. 58), and another in the 

 Numismata Imperii Romani of Jacob Biseus (plate 39, fig. 7). On 

 the former of these medals, the hippopotamus is ridden by a child ; the 

 crocodile accompanies it on both. 



Although the animal's name is not engraved upon those monuments 

 it is not the less certain that the figures represented are those of the 

 hippopotamus, since we learn by the positive testimony of Lucien 

 and Philostratus, that the Nile was never painted or carved without 

 being accompanied by the hippopotamus and crocodilef , 



Hence, they apply a very sufficient corrective to the deficiencies in 

 the descriptions of the ancients, and leave no reasonable ground for 



* Achilles Tatius, book iv, chap. 2. 



f Lucian., Rhetor. Prsecept., vol, iii, page 2. Philostratus, book i, imag. 5, 

 Leipsic edition. 



