Chap. 25.] 
TIGEES. 
275 
animals being imported from Africa into Italy ; but Cn. Au- 
fidius, the tribune of the people,^^ procured a law repealing 
this, which allowed of their being brought over for the games 
of the Circus. Scaurus, in his sedileship,^^ was the first who 
sent over the parti-coloured kind, one hundred and fifty in the 
whole ; after which, Pompeius Magnus sent four hundred and 
ten, and the late Emperor Augustus four hundred and twenty. 
CHAP. 25. TIGEES : WHEN EIEST SEEN AT EOME ; THELR NATTJEE. 
The same emperor was the first person who exhibited at 
Eome a tame tiger ^''^ on the stage.^^ This was in the consul- 
ship of Q. Tubero and Fabius Maximus,^^ at the dedication 
of the theatre of Marcellus, on the fourth day before the 
nones of May : the late Emperor Claudius exhibited four at 
one time.^^ 
(18.) Hyrcania and India produce the tiger, an animal of 
tremendous swiftness, a quality which is more especially tested 
when we deprive it of all its whelps, which are always very 
numerous. They are seized by the hunter, who lies in Avait 
for them, being provided with the fleetest horse he can possi- 
bly obtain, and which he frequently changes for a fresh one. 
As soon as the female finds her lair empty — for the male takes 
no care whatever of his offspring — headlong she darts forth, 
and traces them by the smell. Her approach is made known 
by her cries, upon which the hunter throws down one of the 
25 He was tribune a.u.c. 670. Cicero says, Tusc. Qusest. B. iv. c. 39, 
that Aufidius, although blind, was eminent for his political and literary 
talents. He wrote a History of Greece. — B. 
26 4th of May, a.u.c. 696.— B. 
See also Suetonius, Life of Augustus. Martial, Spect. Ep. 18, relates 
a circumstance respecting a tame tiger, which occurrence appears to have 
taken place at the time when he wrote. Heliogabalus yoked tigers to his car, 
in imitation of Bacchus, as we are informed by Lampridius. 
28 ^' In cavea." In the arena or centre of the amphitheatre. This 
word often signifies, however, the place where the senators, equites, and 
plebeians, sat in the theatre : and in the later writers it is used to signify 
the whole amphitheatre. 
29 A.U.C. 742,— B. 
30 In the winter of 1809 and 1810, an antique mosaic pavement was dis- 
covered at Eome, in which four tigers are represented, and which, it has 
been supposed, might possibly have some reference to those exhibited by 
Claudius. Martial, who lived a little after Pliny, speaks of tigers exhibited 
at Eome, by Domitian, in considerable numbers. Epig. B. viii. Ep. 26. — B. 
