254 
PLIKY^S NATURAL HISTORY. 
[Book VIII. 
the equestrian order.^^ When, however, the elephants in the 
exhibition given by Pompeius had lost all hopes of escaping, 
they implored the compassion of the multitude by attitudes 
which surpass aU description, and with a kind of lamentation 
bewailed their unhappy fate. So greatly were the people 
affected by the scene, that, forgetting the general altogether, 
and the munificence which had been at such pains to do them 
honour, the whole assembly rose up in tears, and showered 
curses on Pompeius, of which he soon afterwards became the 
victim. They fought also in the third consulship of the Dic- 
tator Caesar, twenty of them against five hundred foot soldiers. 
On another occasion twenty elephants, carrying towers, and 
each defended by sixty men, w^ere opposed to the same number 
of foot soldiers as before, and an equal number of horsemen. 
Afterwards, under the Emperors Claudius and JS'ero, the last 
exploit that the gladiators performed was fighting single- 
handed^ with elephants. 
The elephant is said to display such a merciful disposition 
towards animals that are weaker than itself, that, when it 
finds itself in a flock of sheep, it will remove with its trunk 
those that are in the way, lest it should unintentionally 
^6 Tacitus and Suetonius mention this separation of the equites from 
the rest of the spectators : it took place a.u.c. 816. — B. Up to the time 
of Augustus, A.TJ.c. 758, the senators, equites, and people sat indiscriminately 
in the Circus ; but that emperor, and after him Claudius, Nero, and Domi- 
tian, separated the senators and the equites from the commons. 
There are coins which bear the figure of an elephant and the word 
Caesar, probably struck in commemoration of these games. — B. 
The practice of placing towers filled with soldiers on the backs of the 
elephants is alluded to by Lucretius, B, v. 1. 1301, and by Juvenal, Sat. 
xii. 1. 110. — B. It still prevails in India. 
^9 Consummatione gladiatorum.^' There is some doubt about the exact 
meaning of this. It may mean, " at the conclusion of the gladiatorial 
gamos," as exhibited ; or, what is more probable, as the crowning exploit 
of the gladiators,'' who wished thereby to secure their manumission, which 
was granted after remarkable feats of valour. Cselius Rhodiginus, B. xi. 
c. 11, prefers this last meaning : Dalechamps, with whom Ajasson coincides, 
the first. 
50 a Postea singulis." Those who coincide with Dalechamps and Ajas- 
son, as to the meaning, would read it, that at the end of the gladiatorial 
games, the elephants fought singly one against another, the gladiators 
having retired from the arena. 
Pliny here uses the word "manu,'^ "hand," which although, as he 
afterwards remarks, it may not be an inappropriate metaphor, could scarcely 
be admitted in our language. — B. 
1 
