or raw, and we received other animal food also alive. At this time,
too, there occurred all sorts of spectacles in honor of Severus's return,
the completion of his first decade, and his victories. At these spectacles
sixty wild boars of Plautianus upon a given signal began a combat with one
another, and there were slain (besides many other beasts) an elephant and
a crocotta. [Footnote: Hesychius says of this beast merely that it is a
quadruped of Aethiopia. Strabo calls it a cross between wolf and dog.
Pliny (Natural History, VIII, 21 (30)) gives the following description:

"Crocottas are apparently the offspring of dog and wolf; they crush all
their food with their teeth and forthwith gulp it down to be assimilated
by the belly."

Again, of the Leucrocotta:

"A most destructive beast about the size of an ass, with legs of a deer,
the neck, tail and breast of a lion, a badger's head, cloven hoof, mouth
slit to the ears, and, in place of teeth, a solid line of bone."

Also, in VIII, 30 (45), he says:

"The lioness of Ethiopia by copulation with a hyaena brings forth the
crocotta."

Capitolinus (Life of Antoninus Pius, 10, 9) remarks that the first
Antoninus had exhibited the animal in Rome. Further, see Aelian, VII, 22.]
The last named animal is of Indian origin, and was then for the first
time, so far as I am aware, introduced into Rome. It has the skin of lion
and tiger mingled and the appearance of those animals, as also of the wolf
and fox, curiously blended. The entire cage in the theatre had been so
constructed as to resemble a boat in form, so that it would both receive
and discharge four hundred beasts at once, [Footnote: These cages were
often made in various odd shapes and opened automatically. Compare the
closing sentences of the preceding book.] and then, as it suddenly fell
apart, there came rushing up bears, lionesses, panthers, lions, ostriches,
wild asses, bisons (this is a kind of cattle of foreign species and
appearance),--the result being that altogether seven hundred wild and tame
beasts at once were seen running about and were slaughtered. For, to
correspond with the duration of the festival, seven days, the number of
animals was also seven times one hundred.

[Sidenote:--2--] On Mount Vesuvius a great gush of fire burst out and
there were bellowings mighty enough to be heard in Capua, where I live
whenever I am in Italy. This place I have selected for various reasons,
chief o