238 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. VII. 
and makes no mistake. Thus lias Nature formed him not only 
the greatest in size, but the most gentle and the most easily- 
taught. Now if I were going to write about the tractability 
and aptitude to learn amongst those of India, ^Ethiopia, and 
Libya, I should probably appear to be concocting a tale and 
acting the braggart, or to be telling a falsehood respecting the 
nature of the animal founded on a mere report, all which it 
behoves a philosopher, and most of all one who is an ardent 
lover of truth, not to do. But what I have seen myself, and 
what others have described as having occurred at Eome, this 
I have chosen to relate, selecting a few facts out of many, to 
show the particular nature of those creatures. The elephant 
when tamed is an animal most gentle and most easily led to do 
whatever he is directed. And by way of showing honour to 
time, I will first narrate events of the oldest date. Cassar 
Germanicus, the nephew of Tiberius, exhibited once a public 
show, wherein there were many full-grown elephants, male 
and female, and some of their breed born in this country. 
When their limbs were beginning to become firm, a person 
familiar with such animals instructed them by a strange and 
surpassing method of teaching ; using only gentleness and kind- 
ness, and adding to his mild lessons the bait of pleasant and 
varied food. By this means he led them by degrees to throw 
off all wildness, and, as it were, to desert to a state of civilisa- 
tion, conducting themselves in a manner almost human. He 
taught them neither to be excited on hearing the pipe, nor to 
be disturbed by the beat of drum, but to be soothed by 
the sounds of the reed, and to endure unmusical noises and 
the clatter of feet from persons while marching ; and they 
were trained to feel no fear of a mass of men, nor to be enraged 
at the infliction of blows, not even when compelled to twist 
their limbs and to bend them like a stage-dancer, and this too 
although endowed with strength and might. And there is in 
this a very noble addition to nature, not to conduct themselves 
in a disorderly manner and disobediently towards the instructions 
of man ; for after the dancing-master had made them expert, 
