Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850

Оглавление

Various. Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850

NOTES

FURTHER NOTES ON THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

PARALLEL PASSAGES: COLERIDGE, HOOKER, BUTLER

SHAKSPEARE AND THE OLD ENGLISH ACTORS IN GERMANY

TEN CHILDREN AT A BIRTH

GEORGE HERBERT AND BEMERTON CHURCH

MINOR NOTES

Queries

GRAY.—DRYDEN.—PLAYING CARDS

Minor Queries

Replies

HOLME MSS.—THE CRADOCKS

ANTIQUITY OF SMOKING

ANTIQUITAS SÆCULI JUVENTUS MUNDI

ALBEMARLE, TITLE OF

Replies to Minor Queries

Miscellaneous

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS

BERNARD QUARITCH,

Отрывок из книги

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:

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.)

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The word ἱπποπόταμος as used by the Latin writers, instead of ἵππος ποτάμιος 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 ἵππαγρος, "the wild horse," compounded like ὄναγρος (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.

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