﻿FELIS SPEL./EA. 165 



§ 2. Evidence derived from history. We have seen that the first mention of the Cave 

 Lion is that recorded by Dr. Hain from the Hungarian basin of the Upper Danube. 

 Strange to say, the very first historical notice that we possess of the animal is that 

 incidentally recorded of its attacks on the baggage Camels of Xerxes, in an area but a 

 short distance to the south of this, in the mountainous district of Thrace, between 

 Acanthus and the city of Thessalonica. The following exact account is given by 

 Herodotus of an incident in Xerxes' march through Southern Thrace and Macedonia 

 before the battle of Thermopylae : — " And Xerxes 1 and the army marched from Acanthus, 

 striking inland, wishing to come to Therma (Thessalonica), and he marched through the 

 Paeonian and Crestonian districts to the River Echeidorus, which rises in the 

 Crestonian district, and flows through the Mygdonian country, and opens near by 

 the marsh that is close to the River Axius. And while he was on the march in this 

 direction Lions fell upon the baggage Camels. Eor the Lions, coming down by night 

 and leaving their usual haunts, touched nothing else, neither beast of burden nor man, but 

 killed the Camels only. And I wonder what on earth could have been the cause that 

 made the Lions abstain from the other animals and attack the Camels only, beasts that 

 they had never seen before nor tasted. Now, there are in these districts many Lions, and 

 wild Oxen with very large horns that are objects of barter to the Greeks. Now, the boun- 

 dary of the district inhabited by the Lions is the River Nestus, that flows through Abdera, 

 and the Achelous, that flows through Acharnania. Eor neither to the east of the Nestus is 

 there a Lion anywhere in the whole of Europe, nor to the west of the Achelous in the rest 

 of the continent, but its habitat is the district between these rivers." We undoubtedly 

 owe the knowledge that Lions dwelt in this district in the year 480 B.C. to the wonder 

 at their strange choice of prey. The story was still fresh in the memory of the hunters 

 of Chalcidice when it was chosen by Herodotus, in his travels some twenty -five years after- 

 wards, to light up his wonderful narrative. The animal at that time ranged through the 

 country south of the Balkans, through Roumania to the west of the River Carasu, and 



1 Herodotus ; book vii, cap. 124-6. 



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