Res Gestae

Also, when by excessive greed it has made its belly bulge and grown sluggish, it rolls its thighs and legs on freshly cut reeds, in order that the blood flowing from its wounded feet may relieve its repletion; and it keeps the injured parts covered with mud until the raw places scab over.

This monstrous and once rare kind of beast the Roman people first saw when Scaurus was aedile, the father of that Scaurus in whose defence Cicero spoke[*](We have fragments of the oration Pro M. Aemilio Scauro, delivered in 54 B.C. The Scaurus who gave magnificent games when aedile was the same as the one defended by Cicero. His father, who was an aedile in 123 B.C. was poor at the time, and nothing is said of his games, while those of his son were famous. Pliny, N.H. viii. 96, says: eum (= hippopotamum) et quinque crocodiles Romae aedilitatis suae ludis M. Scaurus temporario euripo ostendit. It seems natural to apply this to the man defended by Cicero, and temporario euripo may have been a feature of the temporary theatre which he built on that occasion.) and bade the Sardinians also to conform with the authority of the whole world in their judgement of so noble a family; and for many ages after that more hippopotami were often brought to Rome. But now they can nowhere be found, since, as the inhabitants of those regions conjecture, they were forced from weariness of the multitude that hunted them to take refuge in the land of the Blemmyae.[*](A people of Aethiopia, near the cataracts of the Nile.)

Among Egyptian birds, the variety of which is countless, the ibis is sacred, harmless, and beloved for the reason that by carrying the eggs of serpents to its nestlings for food it destroys and makes fewer those destructive pests.[*](Cf. Cic., Nat. Deo. i. 36, 101.)

These same birds meet the winged armies of snakes which issue from the marshes of Arabia, producing deadly poisons, and before they leave their own lands vanquish

Egypt also breeds innumerable serpents, surpassing all their destructive kind in fierceness: basilisks, amphisbaenae, scytalae, acontiae, dipsades, vipers, and many others,[*](The basilisk was found principally in the Cyrenaica and got its name from a white spot on its head, resembling a diadem; Pliny, N.H. viii. 78. The amphisbaenae were so-called from moving forwards and backward. The scytalae were long and slender like a staff (σκυτάλη). The acontiae are called by Pliny (viii. 85) by the Latin name iaculus, javelin. The dipsades caused excessive thirst (δίψος). These snakes are not found in Egypt in modern times, and the ibis has gone to its native Aethiopia.) all of which are easily surpassed in size and beauty by the asp, which never of its own accord leaves the bed of the Nile.[*](Apparently a misunderstanding of Lucan, xi. 704 f., ipsa caloris egens gelidum non transit in orbem sponte sua Niloque tenus metitur harenas, needing heat, the asp never of its own accord passes into cold regions, but traverses the desert as far as the Nile and no farther (Lucan, L.C.L., p. 557).)