252 
Pliny's natueal histoet. 
[Book VIII. 
and tjbat tliey were slain with javelins, for want of some better 
method of disposing of them ; as the people neither liked to 
keep them nor yet to give them to the kings. L. Piso tells 
us only that they were brought into the Circus ; and for the 
purpose of increasing the feeling of contempt towards them, 
they were driven all round the area of that place by work- 
men, who had nothing but spears blunted at the point. The 
authors who are of opinion that they were not killed, do not, 
however, inform us how they were afterwards disposed of. 
CHAP. 7. (7.) — THE COMBATS OF ELEPHANTS. 
There is a famous combat mentioned of a Eoman with an 
elephant, when Hannibal compelled our prisoners to fight 
against each other. The one who had survived all the others 
he placed before an elephant, and promised him his life if he 
should slay it ; upon which the man advanced alone into the 
arena, and, to the great regret of the Carthaginians, succeeded 
in doing so.^^ Hannibal, however, thinking that the news of 
this victory might cause a feeling of contempt for these ani- 
mals, sent some horsemen to kill the man on his way home. 
In our battles with Pyrrhus it was found, on making trial, 
that it was extremely easy to cut olf the trunks of these ani- 
mals.^^ Fenestella informs us, that they fought at Eome in 
the Circus for the first time during the curule sedileship 
of Claudius Pulcher, in the consulship of M. Antonius and A. 
Postumius, in the year of the City 655 ; and that twenty years 
afterwards, during the curule sedileship of the Luculli, they 
were set to fight against bulls. In the second consulships^ of 
37 "Who were their allies, or rather vassals ; for in such case, they might 
make a dangerous use of them. 
38 Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 2, gives an account of the brutality of Han- 
nibal on this occasion, in forcing the Roman captives to fight against each 
other, until only one was left ; but he does not make mention of the com- 
bat with the elephant, — B. 
39 Florus, B. i. c. 18, states, that this was practised in the later engage- 
ments with Pyrrhus, and that by these means the elephants were eitlier 
destroyed or rendered useless. Cuvier remarks, that the trunk is composed 
of small muscles and fatty matter, enveloped by a tendinous membrane, and 
covered with skin. — 'B. 
*o A.u.c. 678. -B. 
