270 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 
phrastus, the orange-tree of our time; but seems to have 
been a species of Thuya, brought from Cyrenaica. They 
made use not only of the trunk but of some knots that grew 
out near the root. When such pieces could be got of a large 
size, they were sold excessively dear. Cethegus paid fora 
table 1,400,000 sesterces, about £11,000. Even Seneca, 
with all his outcry against luxury, had some tables that cost 
a most exorbitant sum. These pieces were distinguished by 
their colour, and by the way they were veined. Each va- 
riety had a different name. Ebony also was employed, a 
kind of wood first introduced into Italy by Pompey, after 
his victories over the pirates. 
Building. —A great deal of marble was used in building. 
It Was brought from the most distant countries, and there 
were even several of which the quarries are now lost. 
Thus the marbles denoted by the names of vert antique 
and rouge antique , are so termed because they are found 
only in ancient structures. It was in searching for such frag- 
ments among some ruins that Pompeii was discovered. 
Luxury of the Empire . — If from the luxury of indi- 
viduals we turn to the luxury displayed in public festivals, 
we find still greater matter of astonishment. One would 
hardly venture to repeat what is stated in ancient writers, 
yet there appears no ground for supposing that they exag- 
gerated, seeing how closely their accounts agree; when we 
reflect, too, that they were nearly all eye-witnesses of what 
they relate, and that they would not have attempted to 
bring forward assertions opposed to the knowledge of all 
their contemporaries. Messrs. Beckman, Mongez, and Cu- 
vier, have made very extensive inquiries about the animals 
exhibited or slain in the circus. Such inquiries ought not 
to be regarded as merely curious. In fact, it is of impor- 
tance to the naturalist, and for several reasons, to know the 
date of the first appearance of these animals, the countries 
of which they were natives, and their numbers. For ex- 
ample, without ascertaining these points, a naturalist would 
often be apt to mistake the bones of foreign quadrupeds for 
true fossil remains, and thus to mistake transported soil for 
regular formations. 
Curius Dentatus first showed foreign animals at Rome in 
the year 273 before Christ. It will be recollected, that ele- 
phants were first brought to Greece during the conquests of 
Alexander. Aristotle saw them, and wrote about them a 
^reat deal better than Buffon has since done. These ele- 
phants, and some others sent afterwards, came into the pos- 
session of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had taken them 
from Demetrius Poliorcetes. Pyrrhus having been himself 
defeated by the Romans, four of his war-elephants fell into 
the power of the conquerors. These elephants, after hav- 
ing been led in the triumphal possession of Curius, were 
slain before the people. Four-and-twenty years later, Me- 
tellus having gained a great victory over the Carthaginians, 
captured a hundred and forty-two elephants, which were all 
slain with arrows in the circus. It was evidently good po- 
licy, in the time of Curius Dentatus, to put to death some 
of these animals, in order to lessen the fear the sight of them 
had at first produced. There were not the same reasons for 
the second massacre; but, without doubt, the Romans had 
no desire to introduce elephants into their armies, and thus 
oblige themselves to alter, tactics of which they had proved 
the excellence. As little were they inclined to make a pre- 
sent of these elephants to any of the kings their allies, from 
an apprehension of adding too much to their force. Sixty- 
six years after the triumph of Metellus, in the year before 
Christ 186, Marcus Fulvius, to absolve himself from a vow 
he had made in the vEtolian war, exhibited panthers and 
lions. These animals might have come from Africa; but 
perhaps he had obtained them from Asia Minor, where, at 
this time, some were still to be found. The people getting 
a taste for these shows, Scipio Nasica and Publius Lentulus 
gave them a sight of several elephants, forty bears, and fifty- 
three panthers. Quintus Scaevola had several lions fighting 
against men. . Sylla had more than an hundred male lions. 
In the year 58 before Christ, iEmilius Scaurus, during his 
sedilship, distinguished himself not only by the number of 
animals be brought out, but also by presenting several that 
had never before been seen in Rome. In these spectacles 
the first hippopotamus appeared. There were also five 
live crocodiles, five hundred panthers, and, more strange 
still, the bones of the animal to which, it was said, Andro- 
meda had been exposed. These bones had been brought 
from the town of Joppa (Jaffa), on the coast of Palestine. 
There were among them vertebra a foot and a half long, 
and a bone not under six-and-thirty feet in length, probably 
the under jaw of a whale. In the year 55 before Christ, 
Pompey at the inauguration of his theatre, displayed a lynx, 
a cephus from ^Ethiopia (a species of ape),, a one-horned 
rhinoceros, twenty elephants fighting with men, four hun- 
dred and ten panthers, and six hundred lions, whereof three 
hundred and fifteen had manes. All the sovereigns of 
Europe together could not now produce such a number. 
Cicero, who was present at these games, speaks of them 
with great disdain, and says the people at last took pity on 
the elephants. In the 48th year before Christ, Anthony 
exhibited lions harnessed to a chariot; it was the first tim<? 
these animals had been seen so employed, but they were not 
the first that had been tamed. A Carthaginiap, named Hanno, 
had a lion that followed him through that city like a dog. 
His trouble was ill rewarded, for his countrymen banished 
him, judging that a man who had been able to subdue a fero- 
cious beast, must have been gifted with some secret power 
by which he might perhaps have overcome themselves. 
