The following remarks are supplementary to a note on the hippopotamus in
Vol. ii, p. 35. In that note the exhibition of the hippopotamus at the
Roman games is not traced lower than the time of the Emperor Commodus.
Helagabalus, however, 218-22 A.D., had hippopotami among the various rare
animals which he displayed in public as a part of his state. (Lamprid. c.
28) A hippopotamus was likewise in the vast collection of animals which
were prepared for the Persian triumph of Gordian III., but were exhibited
at the secular games celebrated by the Emperor Philip in the 1000th year of
Rome, 248 A.D. (_Capitol. in Gordian. Tert_., c. 33.) In the seventh
eclogue of Calpurnius, a countryman describes the animals which he saw in
the Roman amphitheatre, among which is the hippopotamus:
"Non solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra
Contigit; æquoreos ego cum certantibus ursis
Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum,
Sed deforme genus, quod in illo nascitur amni
Qui sata riparum venientibus irrigat undis."
VII. 64--8.
Calpurnius is generally referred to the time of Carus and Numerian, about
283 A.D.; but his date is not determined by any satisfactory proof. (See
Dr. Smith's _Dict. of Ancient Biog. and Myth_. in v.)
There is no trace of a live hippopotamus having been brought to Europe
between the time specified in the last of these testimonies and the middle
of the sixteenth century. When Belon visited Constantinople, he saw there a
living hippopotamus, which had been brought from the Nile:
"L'animal que j'ai veu vivant à Constantinople (he says), apporté du
Nil, convenoit en toutes marques avec ceulx qu'on voit gravez en
diverses medales des Empereurs."--_Observations_, liv. ii. c. 32. fol.
103. b. ed. 1564.
Belon returned to Paris from the Levant in the year 1550. In his work on
fishes, p. 17., he speaks of another Frenchman, lately returned from
Constantinople, who had seen the same animal. (See Schneider on _Artedi
Synonym. Piscium_, p. 267.) P. Gillius likewise, who visited Constantinople
in 1550, saw there the same hippopotamus, as he states in his description
of the elephant, Hamburg, 114. (Schneider, _Ib._ p. 316.)
Your correspondent, MR. G. S. JACKSON (Vol. ii., p. 277.) controverts the
opinion expressed in my former note, that none of the Greek writers had
seen a live hippopotamus. He thinks that "Herodotus's way of speaking would
seem to show that he was describing from his own observation;" and he
infers that the animal was found at that time as far north as the Delta,
from the fact, mentioned by Herodotus, of its being held sacred in the nome
of Papremis. But, in the first place, it does not follow that, because the
hippopotamus was held sacred in the Papremitic nome, it was found in the
{458} Nile as low as that district. In the next place, there is nothing in
the words of Herodotus to indicate that he had seen the object of his
description. (ii. 71.) On the other hand, the substance of his description
tends strongly to the inference that he had _not_ seen the animal. It is
difficult to conceive that any eye-witness could have described a
hippopotamus as having the hoofs of an ox, with the mane and tail of a
horse. His information as to javelins being made of its skin was doubtless
correct, and he may perhaps have seen some of these weapons. Cuvier
conjectures that the original author of the description in Herodotus had
seen only the teeth and some part of the skin of the real hippopotamus; but
that the other particulars were taken from a figure or description of the
gnu (_Trad. de Pline_, tom. vi. p. 444.) This supposition is improbable,
for the gnu is an animal of Southern Africa, and was doubtless unknown to
the Egyptians in the time of Herodotus. Moreover, Cuvier is in error as to
the statement of Herodotus respecting the animal's size: he says that the
animal is equal in size, not to an ass, but to the largest ox. The
statement as to the ass is to be found in Arist. _Hist. An._, ii. 7.
Cuvier's note is hastily written; for he says that Diodorus describes the
hippopotamus as equalling the strongest bulls,--a statement not to be found
in Diodorus. (i. 35.) His judgment, however, is clear, as to the point that
none of the ancient naturalists described the hippopotamus from autopsy.
The writer of the accurate history of the hippopotamus in the _Penny
Cyclopædia_, vol. xii. p. 247., likewise takes the same view. If Achilles
Tatius is correct in stating that "the horse of the Nile" was the native
Egyptian name of the animal, it is probable that the resemblance to the
horse indicated in the description of Herodotus, was supplied by the
imagination of some informant.
In the mosaic of Palestrina (see Barthelemy in _Mém. de l'Acad. des
Inscript._, tom. xxx. p. 503.), the hippopotamus appears three times in the
lower part of the composition, at the left-hand corner. Two entire figures
are represented, and one head of an animal sinking into the river. Men in a
boat are throwing darts at them, some of which are sticking in their backs.
(See _Ib._ p. 521.) Diodorus (i. 35.) describes the hippopotamus as being
harpooned, and caught in a manner similar to the whale. Barthelemy properly
rejects the supposition that the mosaic of Palestrina is the one alluded to
by Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ xxxvi. 64.) as having been constructed by Sylla. He
places it in the time of Hadrian, and supposes it to represent a district
of Upper Egypt, with which the introduction of the hippopotamus well
accords. The true form of the hippopotamus was unknown in Italy in the time
of Sylla.
The word [Greek: hippopotamos] as used by the Latin writers, instead of
[Greek: hippos potamios] occurs in Lucian (_Rhet. Præcept._, c. 6.). The
author of the _Cynegetica_, who addresses his poem to the Emperor
Caracalla, describes the hippopotamus under the name of [Greek: hippagros],
"the wild horse," compounded like [Greek: onagros] (iii. 251-61.). In this
passage the old error as to the cloven hoofs and the mane is repeated. It
is added that the animal will not endure captivity; but if any one is
snared by means of ropes, he refuses to eat or drink. That this latter
statement is fabulous, is proved by the hippopotamus taken alive to
Constantinople, and by the very tame animal now in the Zoological Garden.
The fable about the hippopotamus destroying its father and violating its
mother, cited before from Damascius, is to be found in Plutarch, _De
Solert. Anim._, c. 4. Pausan. (viii. 46. § 4.) mentions a Greek statue, in
which the face was made of the teeth of the hippopotamus instead of ivory.
An interesting account of the younger hippopotamus in the Zoological
Garden, by Professor Owen, may be seen in the _Annals and Magazine of
Natural History_ for June last.