Chapter 16
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. Some animals, particularly elephants, might even win the sympathy of the audience, but were then killed anyway, despite a brief pardon (Cic. ad fam. 7.1.3; Plin. nat. 8.53, 64, 70f.; Dio 39.38.1–4).
At his triumphs in 46 BC, Caesar presented 400 lions, 40 elephants, several Thessalian bulls and a giraffe (Suet. Iul. 37; Plin. nat. 8.53, 182; Dio 43.22–3.) in the celebration of his victories in Africa and Egypt. In the report of his deeds (Res gestae 22), published posthumously as an inscription in stone, Augustus boasted of having held 26 mock animal hunts, in which 3,500 animals were killed; his successors seem to have done their best to emulate him in this. Emperor Domitian (AD 81–96) made a habit of shooting wild animals with bow and arrow at his country home in the Alban Hills:
There are many who have more than once seen him slay a hundred wild beasts of different kinds on his Alban estate, and purposely kill some of them with two successive shots in such a way that the arrows gave the effect of horns. Sometimes he would have a slave stand at a distance and hold out the palm of his right hand for a mark, with the fingers spread; then he directed his arrows with such accuracy that they passed harmlessly between the fingers.
(Suet. Dom. 19; Loeb)
Emperor Gordian III (AD 238–44) maintained a game enclosure at the Porta Praenestina (Hist. Aug. Gord. 33.1) in Rome, today's Porta Maggiore, with 32 elephants, 10 elks, 10 tigers, 60 lions, 30 leopards, 10 hyenas, 6 hippopotamuses, a rhinoceros, 10 white or wild lions, 10 giraffes, 20 wild asses and 20 wild horses, all of whom fell victim to the ‘Millennium Games’ in AD 248, held to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the founding of Rome. The first bans on arena fights were imposed during the fourth centuryAD, but the animal shows continued, even under Christian rule, to the end of antiquity.
Where animals were artistically represented, it was generally in a subservient role, supporting human sublimeness and power, especially at the hunt. Emperor Hadrian (AD 117–38) is shown on a tondo on the Arch of Constantine in Rome hunting boar. Sarcophagi with hunting scenes glorify the victory or virtus (bravery) of the noble deceased – by contrast to the dying page – and raise hope for eternal life.2 The great hunt on the floor mosaic in the late Roman palace villa at Piazza Armerina (Sicily, c. AD 300) extends over 64 m of a corridor. It shows an exotic hilly landscape, with personifications of Asia and Africa in the apses: big cats kill antelopes, and wild animals are captured with nets and ropes and, under the supervision of imperial officials, loaded onto ships for transport to Italy in rolling cages.3
It can generally be noted that there was a paradoxical relationship between human and animal, characterised on the one hand by personal attachment and care, and on the other by baiting and exploitation. The animal kingdom was seen as exemplary, even in Vergil's parable of the well-organised bee colony (georg. 4.149–227, esp. 220). Pliny the Elder dedicated four books of his 37-volume Natural History to zoology, and at the beginning (8.1) described the elephant as most similar to humans. Even if the animals were part of nature, humans still remained the main point of reference. They could still dispose of animals, although the philosophers might admonish them to deal gently with them.4
The Neopythagoreans opposed anthropocentrism and stood for the protection of animals and for vegetarianism. For Plutarch, animals by nature had greater capacity for virtue and moderation than humans (mor. 987b–f, 988f–991d); moreover, they had natural intelligence and reason (991f–992a). Eating meat was described as harmful (995c–996a), so as to prevent senseless butchering for pleasure's sake (997d–e). Finally, Porphyrius (c. AD 234–305/10) too expressly rejected the eating of meat (abst. 3.1ff.). Early Christianity and the New Testament brought about a certain association of animals with the divine inasmuch as animal sacrifice was abolished, and animals had positive connotations at least symbolically as a part of creation: the Lamb of God, the Holy Ghost as a dove and the Good Shepherd.
1 Peters 1998.
2 Toynbee 1973, 65–6, 132; Andreae 1985; W. Martini, ‘Römische Antike’, in Dinzelbacher 2000, 91ff.
3 Gentili 1999, III.
4 Sorabji 1993, 178–9, 183–4, 208–9; Gilhus 2006, 44ff., 64ff.