Chap. III.] THE ELEPHANT. 
103 
of the Lower Empire and the Komancers of the middle 
ages; and Phile, a contemporary of Petrarch and 
Dante, who in the early part of the fourteenth century, 
addressed his didactic poem on the elephant to the Em- 
peror Andronicus II., untaught by the exposition of 
Aristotle, still clung to the old delusion, 
" n<J8es SI rovrqi dav/xa Kal aa<pes repas, 
Ovs, ov Kaddirep r&Wa rcov faoov yevrj, 
Eftufle Kivelu e| avdpdpwv KXaa/jLaTcav' 
Kal yap o-ri€apo?s avvredevTes ocrreois, 
Kal rfj irXafiapa twv <T(pvpa>v Karacrrdaei, 
Kal irphs &p6pa tuiv o~Ke\uv viroKpiaei, 
~Nvv els t6vovs &yovffi, vvv els vcpecreis, 
Tas iravToZairas eK5pofj.as rov Qrjpiov. 
****** 
Bpaxvrepovs ovras de rav bmo'Q'iasv 
' Ava/xcpiXeKTws o?5a tovs i/xirpoadLOvs' 
Tovtois eXecpas evraOels Sxnrep gtvAois 
'OpOoardSriv &Kafj.irros virv^TTav ixevei," 
v. 106, &c. 
Solinus introduced the same fable into his Polyhistor; 
and Dicuil, the Irish commentator of the ninth century, 
who had an opportunity of seeing the elephant sent 
by Haroun Alraschid as a present to Charlemagne 1 in 
the year 802, corrects the error, and attributes its per- 
petuation to the circumstance that the joints in the 
elephant's leg are not very apparent, except when he 
lies down. 2 
It is a strong illustration of the vitality of error, 
that the delusion thus exposed by Dicuil in the ninth 
century, was revived by Matthew Paris in the thir- 
teenth ; and stranger still, that Matthew not only saw 
1 Eginhajrd, Vita Karoli, c. xyi. Imperatoris Karoli viderunt. Sed, 
and Annates Francorum, a.d. 810. forsitan, ideo hoc de elephante ficte 
2 "Sed idem Julius, unum de sestimando scriptum est, eo quod 
elephantibus mentiens, falso loqui- genua et suffragines sui nisi quando 
tur; dicens elephantem nunquam jacet, non palam apparent." — Di- 
jacere; dum ille sicut bos certissime curotrs, De Mensura Orbis Terrce, 
jacet, ut populi communiter regni c. vii. 
Erancorum elephantem, in tempore 
H 4 
