animals in arena's

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animals in arena's

Postby Quintus Aurelius Orcus on Wed Dec 22, 2004 2:00 pm

Salvete

A while back, someone on another forum asked a question concerning a third species of elephants that was driven to exstinction by the Romans by using it in arena's because those same elephants were the ones Hannibal used in the 2nd Punic War. Now, I always thaught that Hannibal used ordinary African Elephants who were in that time spread accross Africa.
Do we know for sure that Romans wiped out one species of elephant?
Also what kind of animals besides lions, tigers and possibly cougars were used in arena's?
valete

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Postby Tiberius Dionysius Draco on Wed Dec 22, 2004 2:24 pm

Salve Orce,

yes, I too have heard about that. It is said that there used to be a north-african elephant (smaller than a "normal" elephant) that was driven to extinction by a lot of factors.

Two of those will certainly have been the Punic Wars and Colosseum entertainment.

As for other species used in the arena, I would say that any animal exotic enough was qualified to enter the arena. I've heard of bears, rhinos, crocodiles (water games) and even harmless animals such as zebra (though I have no idea how what they did in the arena).

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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Wed Dec 22, 2004 3:15 pm

Salve Coruncani,

Well, I'm not sure if that would be that odd... Alexander's empire stretched to the Indus river, so contact with the indeginous animals of India would not have been all that unlikely or implausible.

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Postby Quintus Pomponius Atticus on Wed Dec 22, 2004 5:58 pm

Apart from that, lions lived in parts of Europe in Antiquity (remember Herakles killing the lion of Nemea), but they entirely disappeared through the Roman's 'effort'...
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