They knew the two-horned Rhinoceros, which has never been seen alive in modern Europe. Domitian exhibited it at Rome, and had it stamped on his medals, which have been very well described by Pausanias.
The one-horned Rhinoceros, distant as was its country, was equally known to them. Pompey shewed one at Rome; and Strabo has accurately described another which he saw at Alexandria[33].
The Rhinoceros of Sumatra described by Mr Bell; and that of Java, discovered and sent home by Messrs Duvaucel and Diard, do not appear to inhabit the continent. Hence, it is not surprising, that the ancients should have been ignorant of them; besides, they probably would not have distinguished them from the others.
The Hippopotamus has not been so well described as the preceding animals; yet very exact representations of it have been left by the Romans in their monuments relative to Egypt, such as the statue of the Nile, the Palestrine pavement, and a great number of medals. In fact, this animal was repeatedly seen by the Romans; having been exhibited by Scaurus, Augustus, Antoninus, Commodus, Heliogabalus, Philip, and Carinus[34].
The two species of Camel, the Bactrian and Arabian, are both very well described and characterized by Aristotle[35].
The Giraffe, or Camelopard (Camel-Leopard), was also well known to the ancients. A live one was shewn at Rome, in the circus, during the dictatorship of Julius Cæsar, in the year of Rome 708; and ten of them were exhibited together by Gordian III. all of which were killed at the secular games of Philip[36], a circumstance which may well surprise the moderns, who have only witnessed a single individual, which was sent by the Soldan of Egypt to Laurentius de Medicis, in the fifteenth century, and is painted in the frescoes of Poggio-Cajano.
If we read with attention the descriptions of the Hippopotamus, given by Herodotus and Aristotle, and which are supposed to have been borrowed from Hecatæus of Miletum, we shall find, that they must have been made up from two different animals, one of which was perhaps the true hippopotamus, and the other was assuredly the Gnou[37], a quadruped, of which our naturalists begin to take notice only about the end of the eighteenth century. It is the same animal of which fabulous accounts were given by Pliny and Ælian, under the name of catoblepas and catablepon[38].
The Ethiopian Boar of Agatharchides, which is described as having horns, is precisely the Ethiopian Boar of modern times, the enormous tusks of which deserve the name of horns nearly as much as those of the elephant[39].
The Bubalus and Nagor are described by Pliny[40]; the Gazelle by Ælian[41]; the Oryx by Oppian[42]; the Axis, so early as the time of Ctesias[43]; and the Algazel, and Corinne, are accurately figured upon the Egyptian monuments[44].