An Environmental History of Ancient Greece and Rome (Key Themes in Ancient History) by Thommen Lukas

Author:Thommen, Lukas [Thommen, Lukas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781139340762
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

2 Jashemski 1979, 172ff., 233ff.; 1998.

3 Grimal 1969, 107ff.; Frass 2006, 428ff.

Chapter 16 Animals

For the Romans, too, keeping animals was of basic economic and social importance. Under their rule, stockbreeding was intensified and expanded throughout the empire, so that new domestic animals were also introduced north of the Alps, including donkeys, mules, peacocks, pheasants and cats. Moreover, stronger draught cattle and larger horses were bred, and poultry keeping was intensified. At the same time, however, as has been shown especially for pigs, sheep, goats, cattle and geese, suitable local breeds were retained in the conquered areas.1

The Romans exploited animals not only for their economic but particularly also for their entertainment value. Animal parks and game enclosures (theriotropheia) had already been known under such Hellenistic rulers as Ptolemy II of Egypt (285–246 BC) in Alexandria (Strab. 3.36.3–4; Athen. 5.201b–c). Since the second century BC, animal enclosures (leporaria, vivaria), aviaries and fish ponds (piscinae) were also maintained on the estates of the Roman upper class. Deer and wild boar, goats and sheep were used both for purposes of show and representation, and for the hunt and food.

At the same time, the phenomenon of public animal spectacles and animal hunting spread in Rome and its empire. The Romans not only displayed animals in cages, enclosures and triumphal processions, they also staged mock animal hunts (venationes, munera) as an amusement in circus games and gladiator contests. Since the early second century BC, such show hunts were held for wild and exotic animals, the range of which was continually being enlarged: lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, giraffes, elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, snakes, bears and so on. Bloodthirsty animal fights cost the lives of vast numbers of exotic animals and threatened certain species with extinction in some areas – elephants in Libya, lions in Thessaly and hippopotamuses in the Nile swamps, according to Themistius (or. 10.140a; cf. Amm. Marc. 22.15.24). However, regrets about this were limited, for the venationes were seen as an institution vital to the state, and hence as generally positive. Strabo (2.5.33), too, had moreover noted that the hunting and capture of wild animals along the coasts of North Africa was favourable for agriculture.

The commander M. Fulvius Nobilior, in his victory celebrations over the Aetolians in 186 BC, was the first to hold a wrestling competition as well as an expensive mock animal hunt, using lions and panthers (Liv. 39.22.1–2). In 169 BC the aediles, as the proper officials, then also held games in which 63 panthers, 40 bears and some elephants were sent into the stadium (Liv. 44.18.8). The praetor Sulla presented 100 lions (Sen. brev. vit. 13.6; Plin. nat. 8.53), while the aedile M. Aemilius Scaurus in 58 BC provided 150 leopards and for the first time an Egyptian hippopotamus and 5 crocodiles for a battle to the death (Plin. nat. 8.64, 96). Three years later Pompey built a theatre for the inauguration of which 18 elephants, 500 lions, 410 leopards, a rhinoceros and apparently also monkeys were set against each other.

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