Book 7

I have learned that the cows of Susa are not without a share of arithmetic. That this is no idle boast, the account itself bears witness, which says that in Susa many cows draw water for the king's parks, into the higher-lying ground, each one a hundred buckets. They perform with the greatest readiness the toil that has been laid upon them or in which they have long been trained, and you would never see one of them shirking; but if, beyond the hundred already mentioned, you should press one of them to draw up so much as a single further bucket, you will not persuade or compel her, whether you strike or coax. So Ctesias says.

At the foot of Atlas—this mountain is celebrated both by the prose writers and by the poets—there are wonderful pastures and very deep woods, and their thickets resemble groves that are altogether shady and overarched with leaves. It is here, they say, that the elephants now grown old come, weighed down with age; for Nature leads them as it were into a colony, having given them rest at last and revealed to them a kind of haven and a longed-for harbour, where they may live out the remainder of their lives. A spring of fresh and very pure water, in great abundance, is set apart for them; they are accounted sacred and are left inviolate; and from the barbarians of that country they have received a treaty against being hunted. They are celebrated in song as gods of the woods and dells, and are made an object of the greatest concern as masters of the place. There is also a story current about them, that one of the local kings, longing for the beauty and the size of their tusks, desired to kill some of them, so that he might gain a choice possession; for, through their many years and the great length of their lives, these animals' weapons are the largest of all. When this desire came upon him, he sent out three hundred picked men to spear this sacred herd. They covered the road as fast as their feet would carry them, fully armed, and were now drawing near the place, when a plague suddenly seized and laid them low; and all of them perished except one, who returned and described the disaster to the man who had sent them—a most pitiable tale. In this way too the elephants were revealed to be beloved of the gods.

There is a Paeonian animal, called the monops, resembling a shaggy bull in size. When it is pursued, then, being agitated, it discharges a fiery and pungent dung, so I hear, which, if it should fall upon any of the hunters, kills him.

It seems that obedience too is proper to the bull, when it has been tamed and changed from its wild nature to gentleness. They remain motionless even upon litters, whether you wish them to stay still on their backs or face downwards, kneeling on their forelegs and carrying upon their necks either a boy or a girl. You will also see a bull bearing a woman upon its back, standing erect upon its hind legs, and propping its whole body lightly upon whatever support it finds. I have myself seen men dancing upon bulls while the bulls stood motionless and unmoved.

The land of Libya is the parent of many and varied beasts, and the so-called catoblepas too it seems to bring forth. In appearance it is much like a bull, but its face looks more savage. Its brows are high and shaggy, and its eyes lie beneath them, not very large like an ox's, but smaller and bloodshot; and they do not look straight ahead, but down at the ground, from which it gets its name catoblepas, the "down-looker." A mane begins above from the crown of the head and, resembling horsehair, comes down over the forehead and covers the face, making it more terrifying to anyone who meets it. It feeds on deadly roots. When it casts a sidelong glance like a bull, it bristles at once and raises its mane; and as this rises and stands erect, and the lips around its mouth are bared, it sends out through its throat a sharp, heavy, foul-smelling breath, so that the air above its head is poisoned, and the animals near it, breathing this in, are grievously harmed and fall into loss of voice and deadly convulsions. This beast understands its own power; the animals know it too, and flee from it as far away as they can.

Those skilled in hunting elephants sing to us that, when these beasts are pursued, they rush and are borne along with an irresistible force and an ungovernable impulse, checked by nothing, and that they drive even through the largest trees as though through a cornfield, snapping the trees like so many stalks of grain; and in some places the trees stand higher than they and overtop their crests, while in others they themselves are taller than the trees. So they run at full speed and, taking shortcuts, cut off their pursuers along the roads, and reasonably so, for they are familiar with the country. And when they have drawn far away, and have got beyond the cavalry that came after them, and have taken heart as though they were in shelter from danger and at liberty, they stand and rest, gladly casting off the anxiety that came from their fear. Then too the memory of food comes upon them; and I hear that they feed on the mastich that grows thickly about the trees, and on wild ivy that creeps over the plants and is very dense, and on the soft, fresh foliage of palms, and on the shoots of other plants and the more tender twigs. But if the pursuers draw near again, they turn once more to flight. The pursuers, however, encamp when evening overtakes them, and setting fire to the wood and so in a manner walling off the road behind, they take their stand against the elephants. For elephants fear fire no less than lions do.

I hear Aristotle saying that cranes flying from the sea to the land give warning to the man who understands of the threat of a severe storm. But when these same birds fly quietly, they promise fair weather and a peaceful sky; and even by their silence the same birds remind those not unskilled that the weather will be calm. But if they fly down and cry out and are troubled and cause trouble, they too in this case threaten a severe storm. A heron crying at dusk seems to indicate the same. A heron flying straight out to sea hints that rain will burst from the sky. But if the weather is wintry, an owl that sings prophesies fair weather and a bright day; whereas if it is fair and the owl gives a low cry, one must expect a storm. The raven that calls quickly and beats and claps its wings was the first to judge that a storm is coming. Again, the raven and the crow and the jackdaw, if they cry in the late evening, teach that some visitation of storm is at hand. Jackdaws screeching like hawks, as he says, and flying now higher, now lower, signify frost and rain. The crow that gives a low cry at suppertime invites fair weather for the morrow. Birds appearing many in number and white in colour teach that there will be much storm. Ducks and gulls that flap their wings indicate a strong wind. Birds flying eagerly from the sea to the land bear witness to a storm. The robin that comes into the farmyards and dwellings clearly is fleeing the visitation of a storm. Cocks too and the domestic fowl, when they beat their wings and bluster and twitter softly, indicate a storm. Birds threaten wind by bathing, and hint at certain onsets of winds. But in stormy weather, birds flying toward one another and darting through one another signify fair weather. Birds that gather about lakes and the banks of rivers are not ignorant that a storm is coming. Again, the birds of the sea and of the marsh, when they go to the land, are not ignorant that there will be much storm; while the land birds hastening to the watery places are messengers of fair weather, provided they keep silent.

I hear the Egyptians say that the oryx perceives the rising of Sirius first, and bears witness to it by sneezing. The Libyans too boast vigorously, asserting that among them even the goats foreknow this same thing. These animals also foreshow rain when it is coming; for when they have gone out of their folds, they rush at a run, and very swiftly, to the fodder; then, when they have eaten their fill, they turn back toward home, and standing there with their faces toward it they remain still, waiting for the shepherd to drive them in as quickly as possible. Hipparchus, in the time of the tyrant Hieron, sitting in the theatre and wearing a leather cloak, astonished men because he foreknew the coming storm from the present clear sky; and Hieron admired him, and congratulated the Nicaeans of Bithynia that Hipparchus was their fellow citizen. At Olympia too Anaxagoras, watching the Olympic games in a leather cloak, when rain burst forth, was celebrated by all Hellas, and boasted that he understood things too divine for mortal nature. That an ox, if Zeus is about to send rain, lies down on its right haunch, but if there is to be fair weather, again on the left, scarcely anyone wonders at. And these things too I have heard, which are enough to astonish. If an ox bellows and sniffs the air, rain must follow. Cattle that eat their fill and beyond their custom indicate a storm. Sheep that dig the earth with their hooves seem to signify a storm; and these same, if they mate early in the season, agree that an early winter is coming. Goats that lie down all together signify the same. Swine appearing in the cornlands teach that rain is to be avoided. Lambs and kids that leap upon one another and skip about agree that a bright day is coming. Weasels squeaking, and mice doing the same as they, betoken that there will be a severe storm. Wolves that flee the wilds and go straight toward inhabited places bear witness by their behaviour that they have shuddered at the onset of a coming storm. A lion's visitation in the fruitful regions indicates drought. Beasts of burden that frisk and bray more than their custom indicate that a wet storm is coming; and if a beast throws up dust with its hooves, this too signifies the same. But hares seen in numbers in these same regions indicate fair weather. In all these matters men are left behind, and learn of such things only when they have happened.

Concerning hawks I have heard this too. The servants of Apollo in Egypt say that there are certain men called hawk-keepers, who are the rearers and tenders of the god's hawks. Now the whole tribe is dedicated to this god; but some there are reared as sacred with carefully prepared food, and they seem to be in no way different from the offerings dedicated to the god.

Those, then, who have been entrusted with the care of these hawks tell the ignorant that they all lay their eggs in their nests—for they are reared in a sacred grove—and it is agreed that, while this is true of other hawks, it is still more so of these. To the newly hatched they offer the brains, extracted from birds that have been caught, a soft food for tender chicks; but to those that are full-grown they set out flesh and sinews, all that makes strong nourishment for birds of prey; while to those between the newly hatched and the already full-grown, hearts are set out, and the remains of these are seen. And the difference of food just mentioned proves that the hawks know what is suited and proper to each age, and observe it very precisely, and would not touch food unsuited to their age. In season, moreover, there are visitations of quails to them, and flocks of other birds come, and those sacred hawks have a feast from these too. The boundless goodwill of dogs toward those who feed them is shown by this also. In one of the civil wars at Rome, when Calvus the Roman had been slain, none of the man's enemies was able to cut off his head, though countless men made it their contest and their boast to do so, until they had killed the dog that stood beside him—a dog reared by him, which most faithfully preserved its goodwill toward him and fought in defence of the fallen man, like a good comrade-in-arms and tent-mate and a friend to the last. And it is worth learning what was done by another—not a man, by Zeus, but a good dog, strong of purpose. Pyrrhus of Epirus was travelling, and came upon a murdered man, with a dog standing beside him and guarding its master, so that no one might do further outrage to the slaying and the corpse. The dog happened to be on the third day without food, keeping its laborious and most steadfast watch. When Pyrrhus learned of this, he pitied the dead man and gave him burial, and ordered that the dog be cared for; and he gave it from his own hand all that a dog longs for, in plenty, and enough to draw it into friendship and goodwill toward himself, Pyrrhus winning the dog over little by little. So much for that. Then, not long afterward, there was a review of the soldiers, and the king of whom I spoke was watching, and that dog was beside him. In all else it kept quiet and was very gentle; but when it saw its master's murderers in the review of the soldiers, it could not bear to remain still, but leaped at them and barked, tearing at them with its claws, and turning often toward Pyrrhus, it called him, as best it could, to witness that it had found the murderers. So suspicion came upon the king and those around him, and they took to heart the dog's barking at the men aforesaid. They were arrested and tortured, and confessed all that they had dared to do. To those who, having trampled upon the law of Zeus the god of comradeship and friendship, have betrayed their friends both living and dead, this seems a mere fable; but I do not believe those who think ill of the noble gifts of Nature, which, if it gave goodwill and affection to the irrational creatures, surely gave them all the more to this rational creature, man. But men do not use the gift. And why should one go on to recount all the other evils that men have wrought against their own friends for the sake of base gain, weaving plots and betraying them? For my part, it grieves me if a dog has been proved more faithful and more loving than men.

This too has come to my ear about the octopus. There was a rock that jutted out, though not very high. Now an octopus once crept up upon it and spread out its tentacles, and was very gladly warming itself—for the weather seemed somehow wintry—though it had not yet turned its own colour to that of the rock. Octopuses are by nature accustomed to do this, both to guard against plots against themselves and themselves to lie in wait for fish. An eagle, then, seeing the prey—sharp-eyed, but not seeing what was good for itself—leaped upon the octopus with all the speed and strength of its wings, reckoning that it would have a ready meal for itself and its young. But the octopus's coils wrapped themselves around the eagle, and clinging fast they dragged the hated foe down; and the eagle, having gaped like a wolf, as one might say, then floated dead upon the sea—over its supper. Countless such things, indeed, do birds suffer, but men suffer more. Among the tales told by Herodotus is that of Cyrus the son of Cambyses among the Massagetae—the other Cyrus—and of Polycrates, who hastened to Oroetes to seize the gold, and of another who, contriving evil for another, contrives it for his own liver. These things the irrational creatures do not know; but men, though they know, do not guard against them. And what need is there of tongue and arguments and teachers and blows, O Cyrus and Polycrates? The rest I pass over; for why should I counsel what is most profitable to the deaf and the senseless?

Let the Paeonian women be proud and take on airs, doing the deeds that are celebrated. They are these. On their head they carry a pitcher full of water, holding their neck erect, so that as they walk the pitcher remains unmoved and unswerving; and hanging an infant at the breast they suckle it; and fastening the leading-rein to their arm they lead their husband's horse to water; and with their hands they spin flax. These things Darius too admired, when some Paeonian youths, having so equipped their sister, brought her before him as he was giving judgment, so that, falling in love with such concentrated industry, he might take the Paeonians. But how much more imposing is Nature than the Paeonian women! A hound that had been hunting—a hare was her quarry, and the hound was pregnant—when she had accomplished the task before her, left the prey to her master, and withdrawing she gave birth, they say, to nine puppies, and then reared them. And if the women of the Ligurians are proud because they too, when they have been delivered of their labour pains, rise up and take up the work of the household, when they hear of the deed of the hound aforesaid they will assuredly cease from their boasting and hide their faces.

The story of the industrious mule Aristotle told, and we too somewhere above; and there is nothing strange in telling this story of the dog as well, which also happened at Athens. A temple-robber came into the temple of Asclepius, having watched for the very middle of the night and waited for the soundest sleep of the sleepers, and then he stole many of the offerings, and, as he supposed, had escaped notice. But there was within a good watchman, a dog, better than the sacristans at keeping awake, which followed him in pursuit and never ceased its barking, bearing witness to the deed with all the power it had. At first the man himself and his partners in that wicked deed pelted it with stones; but at last they held out loaves and barley-cakes. These they brought along as a bait for dogs, providently, as they supposed. But when the dog kept barking both as the man entered the house where he was lodging and again as he came out, it became known where the dog had come from; and the pictures and the places where they had been dedicated longed for the offerings that were missing. So the Athenians inferred that this man was the thief, and putting him to the torture they convicted him of the whole affair. He was punished according to the law, while the dog was honoured with public maintenance and care, as a faithful guardian, in no way inferior in vigilance to any of the temple-keepers.

The goat too, it seems, was good at curing the dimness of the eyes which the sons of the Asclepiads call cataract, and men are said to have learned this remedy from her. It is of this kind. When a goat perceives that her eye has grown clouded, she goes to a bramble and brings her eye against the thorn. The thorn pricks it, and the fluid flows out, but the pupil remains unharmed, and she sees again, and needs not a whit of human skill or surgery.

Elephants cross a river—the young still swimming across; but those already full-grown, even if they are covered by the current, hold their trunks up above the water, while the mothers carry the newborn calves upon their tusks. The young take the lead in dangers and toils, but yield place at drink and food to their elders, showing them respect; and these need no laws of Lycurgus at all. An elephant enfeebled by age or seized by sickness those of its herd would never abandon, but they remain faithfully by it, and are eager to restore it to strength both in other ways and if it is pursued; and they fight in its defence, and are wounded as they stand by it, though they could flee. The mothers too would never betray their young calves, but they too stay faithfully by them, even when the hunters press hard, and would sooner lose their own life than their offspring. But I knew, when I was a youth, an old woman named Laenilla, and she was pointed out by everyone, and a tale was told about her, and the tale was this. My elders told me that this woman, falling passionately in love with a slave, slept with him, and so fastened a stain upon her own sons. They were noble, and belonged to the senate of the Romans by descent from their fathers and from the higher members of their family. The sons, then, ashamed, were grieved that their mother did such things, and gently admonished her, and quietly reminded her of the disgrace of her conduct. But she, surging with desire and setting her passion before her sons, denounced them to the magistrate, and said that they were plotting against him. He, having an ear ready for slanders, and being suspicious and cowardly—these are the afflictions of an ignoble mind—believed her. And they, though guilty of no wrong, were put to death, while she carried off as the prize of her denunciation the freedom to sleep with a slave without restraint. O gods of our fathers, and Artemis of childbirth, and the Eileithyiae, daughters of Hera, why should we still speak of Medea the Colchian or Procne the Attic woman, when we recall the sufferings that have happened of late and in our own time?

Eagles seize land tortoises and then dash them down from above upon the rocks, and having shattered the shell, so extract the flesh and eat it. In this very way too, I hear, Aeschylus the Eleusinian, the tragic poet, met the end of his life. Aeschylus was sitting upon a rock, philosophizing and writing, as was his wont; and his head was bald and bare of hair. An eagle, then, supposing his head to be a rock, let fall upon it the tortoise it was holding, and the missile struck the man aforesaid and killed him.

The cerylus and the halcyon share the same way of life and live together. And when they are enfeebled by age, the halcyons take them up and carry them about upon what are called their mid-wings. But men despise their fellow men as they grow old, and look toward the young; and those who have married flutter about the young women, setting no store by their older wives, and the gifted speakers among them are not ashamed to live more irrationally than the irrational animals.

The Egyptians say that around the place called Coptos only two ravens are to be seen. But the Romans too who guard the mountain region on account of the emerald mine assert—these men also—that just so many birds of this kind dwell there. A temple is honoured to Apollo in that place, of which they say the ravens are sacred.

In this respect too it is not amiss to speak of the peculiarities of animals. The sheep and the ass seem somewhat sluggish; timorous are the fawns and roe-deer and gazelles and pygargs and hares, which the poets call "cowerers." But among the winged creatures too the sparrows are timorous, and among the water creatures the grey mullet. Lewd are the dog-headed apes and the he-goats, and they say these even consort with women, and Pindar seems to wonder at it. Dogs too have been said to make bold against women, and indeed a woman at Rome is said to have been brought to trial for adultery by her husband, and the adulterer was said in the suit to be a dog. I have heard too that dog-headed apes go mad for maidens, and indeed violate them, beyond the petty lewdnesses of Menander's youths at the all-night festivals. Most lustful too and adulterous is the partridge. At any rate they are said to go to the females secretly and somehow noiselessly. But the sharing of food

dogs least of all admit. Often, indeed, they tear one another to pieces even over a bone, as did Menelaus and Paris over Helen. Only the Memphite dogs, I hear, lay down what they have seized in the midst and eat in common. Implacable and merciless is the boar; for they eat one another's dead bodies. Most fishes too do this. Most impious is the river horse, the hippopotamus; for it tastes even of its own father. Shameless, and not easily turned aside, are flies and dogs. Most savage are wolves. The Egyptians say that they even eat one another, and they describe the manner of the plot thus. Having brought themselves into a circle, they run; and when one of them, dizzied by the whirling of the running, grows giddy and is overturned, the rest fall upon him as he lies and tear him to pieces and eat him. They do this when they have fallen into a lack of prey. For, against being hungry, they reckon everything mere nonsense, just as wicked men reckon everything nonsense against silver.

The most malicious of animals is the ape, and the more so in those things in which it tries to imitate man. For example, having seen from a distance a nurse bathing a child in a basin—first loosing its swaddling-bands, then, after the bath, wrapping it up again—it watched where she laid the infant to rest, and when it saw the place deserted, it leaped in through an open window, from which everything was visible to it, and lifting the child from its bed, and stripping it as it had seen done, and bringing the basin into the middle, it poured boiling water—for there was water being heated upon some coals—over the unhappy child, and indeed killed it most pitiably.

Malicious too is the hyena and what they call the corocotta. The hyena, then, comes by night to the farmsteads and imitates men vomiting. The dogs, hearing it, approach as though toward a man; and it seizes and eats them. And the cunning of the corocotta, which I too have heard of, I think I shall now tell. Hiding itself in the thickets, it then hears the woodcutters calling one another by name, and indeed talking of various things. Then it imitates their voices and speaks—even though what is said sounds like a fable—in a human voice, at any rate, and calls the name it has heard. The man called approaches; the beast withdraws and calls again; and the man comes still more after the voice. But when it has drawn him away from his fellow workers and made him solitary, it seizes and kills him and makes him its food, having lured him on by its voice.

The lion knows how to avenge itself on one who has first wronged it, and if it does not take vengeance at once, yet afterward it keeps its wrath in its breast until it may accomplish it. And a witness of this is Juba the Mauretanian, the father of him who was a hostage among the Romans. He was once marching through the desert against certain peoples that had revolted, and one of the youths running beside him—a youth of noble birth and already handsome, and now too a hunter—threw a javelin at a lion that appeared somehow beside the road, and hit the mark and wounded it, though he did not kill it. Since the march was urgent, the beast withdrew, and the man who had wounded it ran on, with the rest. But when a whole year had passed, Juba, having succeeded in the purpose for which he had been sent, returned by the same road and came to the place where the lion happened to have been wounded. And though the company was very great, that beast came up, and held off from all the others, but seized the man who had wounded it the year before, and pouring out all at once the anger which it had kept through the time aforesaid, it tore the youth to pieces, having recognized him. And no one took vengeance, fearing the strong and dreadfully terrifying anger of the lion; and besides, the journey was pressing.

There are, I hear, different kinds of crabs and varied tribes. For there are rock crabs; but mud also breeds crabs, and seaweed and sand. Their forms and their names are many. Those called runners—for so it is most fitting to call them—wander here and there; for they neither wish nor are by nature able to remain quiet and still in the same place, but they roam about the shores from which they were born; and already too they set out farther afield, like those men who are fond of travel. The cause of all this wandering is their wish to enjoy something more. In the Thracian Bosporus, when the current rushes violently down from the Pontus, the crabs wish to walk against the opposing stream, but, as is likely, the current breaks more violently around the headlands. The stream, therefore, would certainly push the crabs back and overturn them, if they were to go straight against the flow. But they know this beforehand, and when they come near the headland, each one waits in some bay-like spot and awaits the rest. Then, gathered together in one place, they creep up onto the land, and clamber up the cliffs, and on foot they cross the most rushing and violent part of the sea. Then, having got beyond the headland and passed it by, they go down again into the sea. And the fishermen spare them, because of their own accord they creep up onto the land, asking to be saved together with them. The fishermen, therefore, do not endure to seem more savage than the surge—

men do not. I know that somewhere above I have spoken of the jealousy of a most prudent and indeed most chaste animal—the purple coot was the animal, if my memory is at all sound—and now too I have learned of a little Sicilian dog, an enemy and most hostile to the tribe of adulterers. The adulterer was hidden within, since the wanton wife had learned that her husband had come home from abroad, and, as she supposed, was nicely concealed; for the household slaves, having been bribed—at least those who helped their mistress hide the mischief, and there were such, both the keepers of mirrors and perfumes, as Euripides says, and the doorkeepers too—made the thief of the marriage bed take courage. But it did not turn out so for her, far from it; for the little dog both barked and beat its paws against the doors, so as to astonish the master and make him infer from what was happening that some evil was lurking hidden. And, as was likely, having broken down the doors, he caught the adulterer. And that man had a sword, and was waiting for night, that he might kill the master of the house and afterward take the woman aforesaid to wife.

Wise too are these things in goats. They know well that human spittle is deadly to another animal, and they guard against it, just as we too try to flee whatever is an evil to a man, if he should taste of it. Indeed a man has before now, in ignorance and unawares, swallowed something harmful; but the goats—the thing aforesaid would never escape them. This same spittle is most deadly for killing even the sea-scolopendras. A goat that is about to be slaughtered knows it clearly. The proof: it would no longer touch food. And it does not deign to follow at the rear of the sheep, but agrees, even by its manner of walking, that it ought to lead. At any rate it runs before them; and the he-goat runs before the she-goats too, taking pride in its beard and, by some wonderful natural instinct, preferring the male to the female.

The most obedient of animals are sheep, taught by nature to be ruled. At any rate they obey both the shepherd and the dogs, and indeed they follow the goats. They love one another strongly too, and are less plotted against by the wolves; for they do not each wander on their own, nor split off from the flock, as goats do. The Arabs say that among them the flocks are fattened by music more than by fodder. They eat salty things with more pleasure; for they make such food a relish for their drink. Sheep know this too, that the north and the south wind help them to breed no less than the rams that mount them; and they know this also, that the north wind is the maker of males, while the south wind is by nature the begetter of females; and if the ewe needs this offspring or that when she is mounted, she looks toward this wind or that. Achilles, that his friend lying on the pyre might be consumed, had need of prayer, and Iris summoned the winds for him, O noble Homer, and promised them a sacrifice, like a wage, when they should come; and the son of Neocles taught the Athenians to sacrifice to the winds; but the ewes have the winds, without all this trouble, as ready and unsummoned servants of their own travail. And the shepherds too are good observers of these things. At any rate, when the south wind blows, then they lead the rams to the ewes, so that their offspring may rather be female.

When the kinsmen of those who first drank wine and fell asleep killed Icarius—not knowing yet that what had befallen them was not death but a wine-heavy stupor—the people of Attica fell sick, as it seems to me because Dionysus was avenging the first and eldest tiller of his own plants. The Pythian god, then, gave an oracle that, if they wished to obtain deliverance, they must sacrifice to Icarius and to Erigone his daughter and to the celebrated dog, because, through excess of goodwill toward its mistress, it had resolved not to live after her. Euripides jests when he says, "To good slaves the misfortunes of their masters, falling out ill, lay hold even upon their hearts." For where has a man died for his master, when a slave dog has done so?

The peculiar goodwill of dogs toward those who rear them this too bears witness. A man of Colophon came to Teos to buy something in partnership; for he was a merchant, and had as his livelihood the trafficking and exchange of wares. He brought along money and a slave and a dog, and the slave carried the money. When they were on their way, the slave turned aside; for some natural need pressed him, and the dog followed too. The young man set down the purse, and did not think to take it up again, but went off; while the dog, laying itself down upon the money, remained quiet. When the master and the slave came to Teos and then returned empty-handed, having nothing to buy, they turned aside again by the same road where the slave had left the purse, and they found their dog lying upon it and scarcely breathing for hunger. When it saw its master and its fellow slave, it leaned itself off the purse, and at the same moment let go both its watch and its life. So not even Argus the dog was a fiction of yours, divine Homer, nor a poetic boast, if indeed

that befell the man of Teos which I have told. There is a kind of crab, and they are named mud crabs. They are whiter to look at than the others, and are born in the mud. When frightened, these even fly; for they have little wings, which gently lift and lighten them. So when walking they have no need of these at all, but when frightened they have a certain not very strong defence; for they are caught neither flying high nor able to travel aloft. These crabs some people eat; and they say too that they are good for pain in the hip, if one in pain should eat them.

The hermit crabs are born naked, but they choose for themselves a shell to inhabit as the best of houses. They slip into the shell of a purple-fish, lighting upon an empty one, or of a whelk. And as long as it covers her, she rejoices in her lodging; but if she grows in flesh, she moves into another house. And she meets with many of those aforesaid.

The whelks even have a king, and are ruled very obediently. And this king is the greatest in size and the most beautiful in beauty. If it is better to sink down, he does this first; if to rise up, of this too he leads the way; and as he shifts his place, the rest follow. And whoever takes this king knows well that he will fare the better for it. And indeed, if anyone should see it caught, he goes away in better spirits, as though he too would have some good fortune. At Byzantium too a prize is set for the man who has caught the whelk aforesaid; the fellow fishermen each give an Attic drachma to the one who has taken it, and this is the prize.

The surge, rolling the sea urchins outward and dashing them against the dry land, casts them out most violently. Fearing this, then, whenever they perceive the wave bristling and about to rise up larger, they take up with their spines little stones, such as are easy for them to carry, and they have ballast, and are not easily rolled over, nor do they suffer what they fear.

The purple-fish is exceedingly greedy, and has a rather long tongue, and inserts it through everything that it can, and through this it draws in whatever it eats, and through this too it is caught. And the manner of the hunt is this. A small but close-woven wicker trap is plaited; and within it has a whelk, and this is fastened in the middle of the trap. It is a struggle, then, for the purple-fish to stretch out its tongue and reach the whelk; and it must thrust out its whole tongue, if it is not to miss what it longs for. And having inserted its tongue, it sucks; then its tongue swells with fullness, and it is unable to draw it out again. So it remains caught, and the purple-fisher, perceiving it, has caught, in second place, the creature that its own greed first chose.

The scolopendra is a sea creature, and to look at is most like the land creature; and if human flesh touches it, it is at once stung and itches, and suffers such things as it does from the plant which they call the nettle. Sea nettles too cause itching, but not yet so much. They are more fit for eating after the equinox is past.

When elephants are routed by the hunters, like soldiers in war, and rush into flight, they do not flee scattered nor one by one, but in common, and they press close together, holding to their fellows. And in a ring are the young, so to speak, the most warlike part, and in the middle the aged and the mothers, and under these the calves, each one hiding her own; and these little ones are very rarely seen. But if even lions see them in a mass, either they flee headlong or one here and one there cower down like fawns—the lions, who till then were dreadful and terrifying, now dreading the elephants. An elephant does not stand against its pursuers, except perhaps in defence of its young and of the sick. There it is unconquerable.

The elephant of Porus, king of the Indians, in the battle against Alexander, when his master had been wounded many times, gently and carefully drew out the javelins with its trunk; and indeed, though it too was wounded many times, it did not yield before it understood that its master, through the great flow of his blood, was sinking and dying. So it lowered itself, and knelt and remained so, that Porus, falling from above, might not have his body further harmed.

The Hyrcanians and the Magnesians took dogs to war with them, and this too was a good ally and aid to them. And a certain Athenian brought a dog as a fellow soldier to the battle of Marathon, and both are depicted in a painting in the Painted Stoa, the dog not being dishonoured but, having received its reward for the danger, being shown together with Cynegirus and Epizelus and Callimachus. These figures, and the dog, are the work of Micon. But some say they are not his, but the work of Polygnotus of Thasos.

Those who say that the female deer does not grow horns are not ashamed before the witnesses to the contrary: Sophocles, who said, "And a horned deer crept down from the steep crags to the pastures"; and again, "And raising her nostrils and her horned antlers she went on at her ease." These verses are by the son of Sophillus in the Aleadae. And Euripides in the Iphigenia says, "I will set in the dear hands of the Achaeans a horned deer, which as they slay it they will boast that they slay your daughter." And in the Temenidae the same Euripides says that the labour of Heracles had horns, singing thus: "He came after the golden-horned deer, undertaking one dreadful labour of the great labours, over the trackless mountain glens and the meadows and the wooded groves of the flocks." And the Theban poet, in one of his victory odes, celebrates it, saying: "By the compulsion of Eurystheus he was to bring the golden-horned female deer from her sire." And Anacreon speaks of a female: "Like a newly weaned suckling fawn, which, left in the wood by its horned mother, took fright." Against those who would corrupt the saying, and indeed assert that one ought to write "wooded" instead of "horned," Aristophanes of Byzantium argues with all his force, and for my part he wins me by his counter-argument.

Peculiar to dogs too are these things, which surpass every excess of goodwill. To Polus the tragic actor his foster-dog, when he was dead and was being burned, gave itself to be burned with him, leaping into the pyre. And to Mentor, as he burned, Eretrian puppies gave themselves to be burned with him willingly, sharing in his end. Theodorus, a man good at the harp—his kinsmen laid him in the coffin, and a little Maltese dog threw itself into the tomb of the dead man and was buried with him. I have learned too that there is a people of the Ethiopians among whom a dog is king, and they obey its impulse; and they know, when it whines, that it is not angry, and when it barks, they understand its wrath. If Hermippus is sufficient for anyone to prove this, let him persuade by bringing Aristocreon forward as a witness of the account; but it did not escape me, and so came opportunely into my memory.

Lacydes the Peripatetic had a remarkable creature, a goose. It loved its keeper strongly, and walked beside him as he walked, and rested when he sat, and was never for a moment parted from him. When it died, Lacydes buried it most lovingly, as one might bury a son or a brother. And Pyrrhus of Epirus had an elephant which so loved its own keeper that, when Pyrrhus had died at Argos, and the man who drove it had fallen, it would not be still and quiet until it had rescued him from the enemy and brought him back to friendly ground.

The malice of a mule Thales of Miletus countered, having detected it very secretly. A mule was carrying a load of salt, and once, going through a river, it chanced to slip and was overturned. The salt, then, being soaked, melted away, and the mule, having become light, was pleased; and perceiving how great the difference was between toil and ease, it made fortune its teacher for the future, and what it had at first suffered unwillingly, it then did willingly. To drive it by another route, out of the river, was impossible for the muleteer. When Thales learned of this, as it was related to him, he thought he ought by wisdom to counter the mule's malice, and ordered that, instead of salt, it be loaded with sponges and wool. The mule, not knowing the plot, slipped as usual, and having filled with water the load upon it, perceived how its trick had turned to its own harm, and from then on it crossed quietly, keeping control of its legs, and preserved the salt unharmed.

I learn that in the city of Antioch in Syria there was a gentle elephant, and that as it went to its pasture it looked with pleasure upon a woman who sold garlands, and stood beside her, and with its trunk wiped the woman's face. And she would let down to it, as a bait of love, a garland woven from the flowers of the season; and it was his daily business to take it, and hers to give it. But in time the woman ended her life, and the elephant, missing its accustomed ways and not seeing the woman it had longed for, like a lover unlucky in his beloved, grew wild; and the one till then most gentle was kindled to anger, just as those among men who, being overwhelmed by grief, have been driven out of their senses.

Elephants worship the rising sun, stretching their trunks straight toward the ray like hands, and for this reason they are beloved of the god. Let Ptolemy Philopator be a good witness for us. The victory over Antiochus was won with the help of the sun, and Ptolemy, sacrificing thank-offerings and propitiating Helios, sacrificed magnificently in other ways, and presented four elephants of the greatest size as victims, as he supposed, honouring the divinity with this sacrifice. But a dream troubled him, as though the god were threatening him for the strange and unwonted sacrifice; and in fear he made four bronze elephants and dedicated them to the god in place of those he had killed, propitiating and appeasing him. Elephants, then, worship the gods; but as for men, whether they are gods, and whether, being gods, they care for us, is a matter of doubt.

The priests in Egypt sprinkle themselves not with any water, nor with whatever is at hand, but with that from which they have been persuaded the ibis has drunk. For they know very well that it would never drink water that is foul or polluted by any harmful substances; for they believe that the creature has within itself something of prophecy too, inasmuch as it is sacred. And I hear that elephants which are unwounded gently draw out from the wounded the lances and javelins, like men skilled in surgery and trained in the wisdom of such matters. So even the irrational creatures were objects of earnest concern to the men of former times. The Eagle—Pyrrhus of Epirus—rejoiced to hear himself so called, and so did the one called the Hawk—Antiochus. These various and gathered things have been told, worth learning for the man who understands.

Mithridates of Pontus, when he slept, trusted less to arms and bodyguards, and for this reason he kept as tamed guards a bull and a horse and a deer. These beasts, then, kept guard over him as he slept, perceiving most swiftly from the breath if anyone approached. And the one by its bellowing, another by its neighing, and another by its bleating would wake him.

The young offspring of wild animals are named in different ways, and most have a twofold appellation. The young of lions are called cubs and lion-whelps, as Aristophanes of Byzantium attests; those of leopards, cubs and arceli—though there are some who say that the arceli are a different kind from leopards. The young of jackals like to be called only cubs, and likewise those of tigers, and of ants and of panthers. It seems too that the offspring of lynxes are named in the same way. At any rate in the Dithyrambs ascribed to Lasus the lynx's young is so called. The young of apes we hear are called both cubs and ape-whelps; and the young of antelopes, foals; and if of oryxes too, I should not wonder, says the same Aristophanes. The young of dogs and of wolves would be called whelps, says he; and now the young of wolves are also called wolf-whelps, while the full-grown and largest would be called a lone-wolf. The young of hares are leverets; but the full-grown one the poets like to call a "cowerer," and the Lacedaemonians a "swift one." The offspring of foxes are called fox-whelps; but the mother herself is called the "cunning one" and the "burrower" and the "skulker." The young of wild swine they name moloubria; and you may hear Hipponax calling the boar itself a moloubrites. Some swine too are called "lone-ones." Gazelles they are accustomed to call zorcae and procae as well. The offspring of porcupines and such creatures are called obria; and Euripides mentions the name in the Peliades, and Aeschylus in the Agamemnon and the Net-Haulers. The young of birds and of snakes and of crocodiles some call psacali, among whom are the Thessalians. New-hatched birds they call ortaliches, and the chicks of fowls alectorides, and again goslings and shelduck-chicks and the like they form in the same way. Achaeus the tragic poet called the nestling of the swallow a "calf."

That memory attends animals too, and that this also is peculiar to them, apart from the art and the wisdom in regard to it which certain charlatans boast that they have devised, these things prove. A man whose master was one of the Roman senate ran away—Androcles by name, a slave by fortune, for what crime, and how great, I cannot say. He came, then, to Libya, and left the cities behind, and, as the saying goes, marked his course by the stars, and advanced into the desert. Scorched by the abundant and fiery ray, he gladly ran beneath a cavernous rock and rested; but this rock was the lair of a lion. The lion, then, returns from the hunt, pierced through by a violent thorn and tormented, and meeting the young man it looked upon him gently, and began to fawn, and held out its foot, and entreated, as best it could, that the thorn be drawn out. At first the man cowered down; but when he saw the beast gentle and understood the trouble in its foot, he drew out what pained it from the foot, and freed it from its anguish. Delighted, then, with the cure, the lion, paying him his physician's fee, considered him guest and friend, and shared with him what it hunted. And the lion ate its share raw, as is the way of lions, while the man roasted his own; and they enjoyed a common table, each according to its own nature. For three years Androcles lived in this manner; then, grown over-shaggy and seized by a violent itch, he left the lion and gave himself up to fortune. Then, as he wandered, men seized him and, learning whose he was, bound him and sent him to Rome to his master. The master called the slave to account for the wrongs he had suffered, and the man was condemned to be given as food to wild beasts. And that Libyan lion too was somehow caught and let loose in the theatre, and the young man was brought out to be destroyed—he who had once been the housemate and tent-mate of that very lion. And the man did not recognize the beast, but the beast at once knew the man, and fawned upon him, and lowering its whole body cast itself at his feet. At last Androcles too recognized his own guest-friend, and embracing the lion as a comrade returned from abroad, he welcomed it. Then, since he seemed to be a sorcerer, a leopard too was let loose upon him. But as it rushed at Androcles, the lion, defending the man who had once healed it, and mindful of their common table, tore the leopard to pieces. As was likely, then, the spectators were astonished, and the giver of the show called Androcles, and learned the whole story. And a murmur spread through the crowd, and the people, having learned the truth, cried out that both the man and the lion should be set free as free men. Memory, then, is indeed peculiar to animals. And in harmony with what has been said, and to the same effect, there is the case of the man who slept in Samos at the foot of the "Gaping Dionysus," and was thought to know the den. Let this be heard from Eratosthenes and Euphorion and others who describe it.