A.U.C. 701. The art of taming these beasts was carried to such
perfection, that Mark Antony actually yoked them to his carriage. Julius
Caesar, in his third dictatorship, A.U.C. 708, showed a vast number of
wild beasts, among which were four hundred lions and a cameleopard. A
tiger was exhibited for the first time at the dedication of the Theatre
of Marcellus, A.U.C. 743. It was kept in a cage. Claudius afterwards
exhibited four together. The exhibition of Titus, at the dedication of
the Colosseum, here mentioned by Suetonius, seems to have been the
largest ever made; Xiphilinus even adds to the number, and says, that
including wild-boars, cranes, and other animals, no less than nine
thousand were killed. In the reigns of succeeding emperors, a new
feature was given to these spectacles, the Circus being converted into a
temporary forest, by planting large trees, in which wild animals were
turned loose, and the people were allowed to enter the wood and take what
they pleased. In this instance, the game consisted principally of beasts
of chase; and, on one occasion, one thousand stags, as many of the ibex,
wild sheep (mouflions from Sardinia?), and other grazing animals, besides
one thousand wild boars, and as many ostriches, were turned loose by the
emperor Gordian.

[790] "Diem perdidi." This memorable speech is recorded by several
other historians, and praised by Eusebius in his Chronicles.

[791] A.U.C. 832, A.D. 79. It is hardly necessary to refer to the well-
known Epistles of Pliny the younger, vi. 16 and 20, giving an account of
the first eruption of Vesuvius, in which Pliny, the historian, perished.
And see hereafter, p. 475.

[792] The great fire at Rome happened in the second year of the reign of
Titus. It consumed a large portion of the city, and among the public