AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
271 
In the year 46 before Christ, Caesar put forth, in an am- 
phitheatre covered over with a purple awning, four hundred 
maned lions, several wild bulls fighting with men, and 
twenty elephants which were attacked by five hundred in- 
fantry. On the evening of his triumph, he returned home 
preceded by elephants carrying torches. 
We may imagine the unbounded opulence of the men 
who could afford such spectacles — the eagerness of allied 
kings to gratify them — the crowds of human beings em- 
ployed in obtaining the animals exhibited to the people! It 
is not less astonishing that it was possible to collect such a 
multitude of large animals and beasts of prey. 
Yet in this kind of munificence the great Romans of the 
republic were afterwards outdone by the emperors. From 
an inscription, in honour of Augustus, found at Ancyra, we 
learn, that this prince caused three thousand five hundred 
wild beasts to be slain before the people. On one occasion 
he had water brought into the circus of Flaminius, and 
showed thirty-six live crocodiles torn to pieces by other 
savage animals. Two hundred and sixty-eight lions were 
killed at this entertainment. There was besides a serpent 
fifty cubits long, a python from Africa, and a royal tiger 
confined in a cage, the first that had been seen in Rome. 
Augustus, before he became emperor, at his triumph over 
Cleopatra, had a reindeer and a hippopotamus slain in the 
circus. Germanicus, at his triumph over the Germans, 
brought out elephants that had been taught to dance. Cali- 
gula gave four hundred bears and four hundred panthers to 
be killed. Claudius, at the dedication of the Pantheon, dis- 
played four live royal tigers. A mosaic pavement which 
has lasted till our time, represent these animals of their 
natural size. The same emperor having been informed 
that a whale was stranded in the harbour of Ostia, repaired 
thither, and engaged the monster with his galleys. The 
animal was probably a large species of dolphin, the orca. 
Galba showed an elephant that went up on a tight rope to 
the summit of the theatre, with a Roman horseman on his 
back. These elephants were instructed when they were 
young, for they were born in Rome. JElian says so posi- 
tively, in speaking of the elephants of Germanicus. Mr. 
Corse Scott has shown, in opposition to the opinion of 
Buffon, that elephants, by taking certain precautions, will 
breed in a state of domestication. But the fact was known 
in Italy from the time of Columella. 
This lavish expenditure continued during the first four 
centuries of the Roman empire. Titus, at the dedication 
of his baths, placed in the circus nine thousand animals, 
and exhibited cranes fighting together. Domitian gave 
hutits by torch-light, where the two-horned rhinoceros ap- 
peared, — an animal with which Sparrman has made us ac- 
quainted only within' the last sixty years, though it is en- 
graved on the medals of Domitian. In these games a wo- 
man fought with a lion. An elephant, after having trampled 
to death a bull, went and knelt to the emperor; a royal 
tiger killed a lion ; and wild cattle dragged chariots. Martial 
has occupied a whole book with the description of the 
games of Domitian. In his epigrams naturalists will find 
marly curious hints. 
Trajan, after his victory over Deceballus, king of Parthia, 
gave entertainments that lasted three-and-twenty days. 
According to Dio Cassius, eleven thousand animals perished 
at them. But the accounts of historians are much less in- 
teresting, than a mosaic, executed by order of that emperor. 
In this valuable fragment, which was discovered at Pales- 
trina, the ancient Prseneste, the animals of Egypt and 
Ethiopia are figured with the names under each of them. 
The lower part represents the inundation of the Nile. 
The forms of the ibis, the crocodile, and the hippopotamus, 
are very exactly given. But the hippopotamus has been 
very ill described by the Roman naturalists, who have only 
copied from Herodotus. On the upper part of the mosaic 
there appear among the mountains of Ethiopia the giraffe, 
under the name of nabis; apes, and various reptiles; in all 
thirty animals, easily recognised, and whose nomenclature 
is thus determined. 
Antoninus, the successor of Adrian, conforming to the 
established usage likewise exhibited games. He had croco- 
diles, hipoppotamuses, strepsiceroses (antelopes), and hyae- 
nas, different from those described by Agatarchis. 
Marcus Aurelius abhorred such spectacles, but his son 
Commodus resumed them with fury; with his own hand he 
slew a tiger, a hippopotamus, and an elephant. He sent 
into the circus a great number of ostriches, and as they ran 
about cut off their heads with crescent-shaped blades, fixed 
on the points of arrows. Herodian, who relates the fact, 
says, that the birds, after being decapitated ran about some 
time. The experiment has been successfully repeated on 
ducks. Septimus Severus, in the tenth year of his reign, 
at the rejoicings on the marriage of Caracalla, made four hun- 
dred animals come out of a machine, and among them some 
wild asses and bisons. At the marriage of Heliogabalus, 
there were chariots drawn by all kinds of wild beasts. 
The most expensive and most curious assemblages of ani- 
mals were those of the Gordians. The first emperor of 
this name in one day exposed to view a thousand panthers. 
Probus, one of their successors, had trees planted in the 
circus. More than a thousand ostriches, and a countless 
throng of various creatures were seen running about in this 
artificial forest. 
So long as the Roman empire existed in the west, similar 
displays were continued. In spite of the prohibitions of 
Constantine, there were some even under Christian empe- 
