Chap. 20.] 
269 
multitude of his pursuers. If a person has thrown a dart at 
him, but has failed to inflict a wound, the animal seizes him, 
whirls him round and throws him to the ground, but without 
wounding him. When the lioness is defending her whelps, it is 
said that she fixes her eyes steadily on the ground, that she 
may not be frightened at the spears of the hunters. In all 
other respects, these animals are equally free from deceit and 
suspicion. They never look at an object obliquely, and they 
dislike being looked at themselves in such a manner. It is 
generally believed, that, when the lion is dying, he bites at the 
earth, and sheds tears at his fate.® Powerful, however, and 
fierce as this animal is, he is terrified by the motion of wheels 
or of an empty chariot, and still more on seeing the crest or 
hearing the crowing of a cock ;^ but most of all, is he afraid of 
fire. The only malady to which the lion is subject, is loss of 
appetite ; this, however, is cured by putting insults upon him, 
by means of the pranks of monkeys placed about him, a thing 
which rouses his anger ; immediately he tastes their blood, he is 
relieved. 
CHAP. 20. WHO IT WA.S THAT FIRST INTE0DT7CEI) COMBATS Of 
LIONS AT ROME, AND WHO HAS BROUGHT TOGETHER THE GREAT- 
EST NUMBER OF LIONS FOR THAT PURPOSE. 
Q. Scsevola, the son of P. Scsevola, when he was curule 
sedile, was the first to exhibit at Eome a combat of a number 
of lions ; and L. Sylla, who was afterwards Dictator, during his 
praetorship, gave the spectacle of a fight of one hundred lions with 
manes.^ After him, Pompeius Magnus exhibited six hundred 
lions in the Circus, three hundred and fifteen of which had 
manes ; Caesar, the Dictator, exhibited four hundred. 
6 Probably, there is no foundation for this opinion : it does not appear 
that any animal, except man, has the faculty of weeping, i. e. of shedding 
tears, in connection with a peculiar condition of mind and feeling. — B. But 
query as to the horse. See c. 64 of the present Book, and the Introduc- 
tion to Tol. i. p. xvii. 
' This supposed fear is without foundation, hut appears to have been a 
generally received opinion, as it is referred to by Lucretius, B. iv. 1. 714 
— 725.— B. 
s Seneca gives an account of this exhibition ; he says that the lions were 
turned loose into the Circus, and that spearmen were sent by king Bocchus, 
who killed them with darts. Sylla was praetor a.tj.c. 661, b.c. 92. — B. 
