ELEPHANTS IN THE AMPHITHEATRE.
As the elephant was used in the early days to add to the pomp and glory
of the Roman conquerors, it is not surprising that they were also
employed in the games and sports of the people. It was the custom in the
days of old Rome, to match men against the most ferocious animals; and,
long before the elephant was known in Italy, brave men met the lion,
single-handed, in the arena. When the elephant was introduced, it was
evident that the amphitheatre had new possibilities; and forthwith the
huge animals became a feature of the barbaric pastimes of the period. It
is needless to say that a people given to such diversions, which involved
the torture of thousands of living creatures, were grossly debased
morally.
Milton has thus described the times and men under Tiberius:—
“That people, victor once, now vile and base,
Deservedly made vassal; who, once just,
Frugal, and mild, and temp’rate, conquered well;
But governed ill the nations under yoke,
Peeling their provinces, exhausted all
By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown
Of triumph, that insulting vanity;
Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured
Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed;
Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,
And from the daily scene effeminate.”
For four hundred years Rome was given over to displays, in which the most
brutal passions were aroused, and of which the Spanish bull-fight is the
sole modern representative. The great circus where these exhibitions
took place was the Colosseum, in which five thousand wild beasts were
slaughtered at its dedication by Vespasian; and its skeleton-walls still
stand to-day, a monument to the skill and misdirected talent of the
people of that time.
The Roman circus was thoroughly a government institution, and a part of
the political machinery of the time in this way, that the exhibitions of
strange wild beasts was devised by the victorious Roman rulers to show to
their constituents and countrymen the wonders of the foreign countries
they had conquered.
According to Pliny, Mutius Scævola (102 B.C.) first exhibited a combat
of lions at the circus, and C. Scipio Trasica and C. Lentulus were the
originators of contests between men and wild beasts.
In these terrific struggles, lions and tigers were let loose in the
arena, and fought with human slaves and convicts.
When Pompey dedicated his theatre, he gave the most remarkable exhibition
on record. Five hundred lions and eighteen hundred elephants are said
to have been pitted against a body of armed men. The huge animals were
attacked in every possible way,—sometimes by swords, again by lances.
In the second consulate of Pompey (54 B.C.), a herd was matched against
a company of Getulian archers; and, according to Pliny, one of the
elephants, enraged by its wounds, rushed upon an archer, and hurled his
shield high in air. Another, wounded by a javelin, created a panic among
the rest; the great animals rushing against the railing of the circus
with such force, that it gave way, and numbers of the spectators were
wounded.
As a rule, the elephants were defeated; and the historian Dion adds a
description of a wonder no less honorable to the Roman people than to the
sagacity of the elephants. “The spectators,” he says, “so compassionated
the animals, when they saw them raising their trunks to heaven, roaring
most piteously, as if imploring the gods to avenge the cruel treachery
which had compelled them to come from their native forests, that they
demanded that they should be saved.” Pliny, relating the same story,
states that the populace were so touched by the terror which the
elephants exhibited, and so full of admiration at their sagacity, that
regardless of the presence of Pompey, and forgetful of his munificence,
they rose from their seats, and demanded, with imprecations against
the consul, that the combat should be at an end. But habit appears
soon to have reconciled the people to the torturing cruelties of the
amphitheatre,—
“Where murder breathed her bloody steam;”
and we have few other recorded instances of their clemency.
The elephant tournaments of Cæsar added greatly to his popularity as
dictator. “When Cæsar, the conqueror of the world,” says Velleius
Paterculus, “returned to the city, he forgave all who had borne arms
against him [which passes all human belief], and exhibited ship-fights,
and contests of horse and foot, together with elephants.” “On this
occasion the spectators were well secured by ditches, which surrounded
the arena, from the charges of the infuriated beasts, who had annoyed
them considerably at the games of Pompey. In these sports of the great
dictator, twenty elephants were opposed to five hundred men on foot.”
Entertainments of this kind naturally tended to debase and brutalize the
people, and the demand for slaughter was ever on the increase. It is said
that Claudius rose at daylight to go to the circus, that he might not
miss a single pang of the victims, human or brute. During his reign, and
that of Nero, a famous sport was to match an elephant against a single
fencer, who sometimes attacked the great beast on horseback, and again on
foot.
The Colosseum was the natural outcome of the passion for such barbarous
sports. The old one did not afford room enough, and Vespasian commenced
the new one, which was completed by Titus (A.D. 79); and it still stands,
as a monument of a dark era in the history of Rome.
While these exhibitions would seem only a remnant of the most barbarous
ages, they have been permitted, even at the present day. In certain parts
of India, elephants are now baited to afford entertainment to certain
native princes and nobles; and fifty or sixty years ago it was very
common.
When Bishop Heber was at the court of Baroda, “The Rájah,” he says,
“was anxious to know whether I had observed his rhinoceros and his
hunting-tigers, and offered to show me a day’s sport with the last, or to
bait an elephant for me,—a cruel amusement which is here not uncommon....
I do not think he understood my motive for declining to be present.”
“At the palace of Jyepoor,” says the same writer, “we were shown five
or six elephants in training for a fight. Each was separately kept in a
small, paved court, with a little litter, but very dirty. They were all
what is called ‘must;’ that is, fed on stimulating substances, to make
them furious: and all showed in their eyes, their gaping mouths, and the
constant motion of their trunks, signs of fever and restlessness. Their
mahouts seemed to approach them with great caution; and, on hearing a
step, they turned round as far as their chains would allow, and lashed
fiercely with their trunks.”
Mr. Crawford states that elephant combats were common in his day; but, as
a rule, the animals, directed by mahouts, fought across a stout railing,
the method of attack being to butt each other, and cut with the tusks.
Father Tachard, a French Jesuit, witnessed an elephant-fight in Siam, in
1685, before the king. The animals were matched against each other, but
were securely tied by the hind-legs, so they could not severely injure
each other. They fenced with their tusks, striking such powerful blows
that one of the combatants lost its tusks.
Elephant-fights have been a favorite amusement in India from the very
earliest times. At Agra, according to the “Ayeen Akbery,” the emperor
built a large amphitheatre especially for these performances; and Robert
Covert, who travelled in Hindostan in 1609, in referring to Agra, tells
of elephants fighting before the Mogul, parted with rockets of wild-fire,
made round, like hoops, which they thrust in their faces.
The finest account extant of one of these combats is given by Bernier:—
“The festivals generally conclude with an amusement unknown in Europe,—a
combat between two elephants, which takes place in the presence of all
the people, on the sandy space near the river; the king, the principal
ladies of the court, and the omrahs, viewing the spectacle from different
apartments in the fortress.
“A wall of earth is raised three or four French feet wide, and five or
six high. The two ponderous beasts meet one another face to face, on
opposite sides of the wall, each having a couple of riders, that the
place of the man who sits on the shoulders, for the purpose of guiding
the elephant with a large iron hook, may immediately be supplied if
he should be thrown down. The riders animate the elephants, either by
soothing words, or by chiding them as cowards, and urge them on with
their heels, until the poor creatures approach the wall, and are brought
to the attack. The shock is tremendous; and it appears surprising that
they even survive the fearful wounds and blows inflicted with their
teeth, their heads, and their trunks. There are frequent pauses during
the fight; it is suspended and renewed; and the mud wall being at length
thrown down, the stronger or more courageous elephant passes on, attacks
his opponent, and, putting him to flight, pursues and fastens upon him so
obstinately, that the animals can be separated only by means of cherkys,
or fireworks, which are made to explode between them; for they are
naturally timid, and have a particular dread of fire, which is the reason
why elephants have been used with so very little advantage in armies
since the use of fire-arms. The boldest come from Ceylon; but none are
employed in war which have not been regularly trained, and accustomed for
years to the discharge of muskets close to their heads, and the bursting
of crackers between their legs.
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
PREHISTORIC STONE PIPES
_Page 239._]
“The fight of these noble animals is attended with much cruelty. It
frequently happens that some of the riders are trodden under foot, and
killed on the spot; the elephant having always cunning enough to feel the
importance of dismounting the rider of his adversary, whom he therefore
endeavors to strike down with his trunk. So imminent is the danger
considered, that, on the day of combat, the unhappy men take the same
formal leave of their wives and children as if condemned to death. They
are somewhat consoled by the reflection, that, if their lives should be
preserved, and the king be pleased with their conduct, not only will
their pay be augmented, but a sack of peyssas (equal to fifty francs)
will be presented to them the moment they alight from the elephant.
They have also the satisfaction of knowing, that, in the event of their
death, the pay will be continued to the widows, and that their sons
will be appointed to the same situation. The mischief with which this
amusement is attended does not always terminate with the death of the
rider: it often happens that some of the spectators are knocked down and
trampled upon by the elephants, or by the crowd; for the rush is terrible
when, to avoid the infuriated combatants, men and horses, in confusion,
take to flight. The second time I witnessed this exhibition, I owed my
safety entirely to the goodness of my horse and the exertions of my two
servants.”
In the middle of the seventeenth century, elephant-fighting was a
favorite amusement among the princes of the Mogul empire. Almost every
day some exhibition was given, devised to afford a display of the
greatest cruelty. A single elephant was matched against six horses,
which were killed by being clasped about the neck by the elephant, and
suffocated, or impaled by their tusks. On other occasions, the elephant
was matched against a tiger. Mr. Crawford witnessed such a performance.
The tiger was muzzled, and its claws cut, and was finally killed by
successive tosses from the tusks of the infuriated elephant, who hurled
the helpless animal a distance of thirty feet.
At one of the Mogul entertainments, an English bull-dog was matched
against an elephant. The pugnacious animal seized the trunk of the
elephant, and clung to it until it was jerked into the air to a great
height. But it held on so long, that bull-dogs became great favorites
with the Mogul, who had them carried about in palanquins with him, and
is said to have fed them himself with silver tongs, made expressly for
the purpose. Pliny gives an account of two remarkable dogs, which were
presented to Alexander the Great by the King of Albania, one of which
vanquished an elephant. Happily, the day for these barbarous contests has
gone by, at least in civilized nations.