Battle between Pigmies and Geese.
Homer, in the third book of the "Iliad," alludes to the wars of the Cranes and Pigmies:
"So when inclement winters vex the plain
With piercing frosts, or thick-descending rain,
To warmer seas the Cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order through the midway sky;
To Pigmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing."
A Pigmy Scene—from Pompeii.
One of our engravings shows that not India only, but Egypt also, was regarded as the haunt of the Pigmy race; for the Upper Nile was then, as now, the home of the hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the lotus. Here we see a bald-headed Pigmy hero riding triumphantly on a mighty crocodile, regardless of the open-mouthed, bellowing hippopotamus behind him. In other pictures, however, the scaly monster, so far from playing this submissive part, is seen plunging in fierce pursuit of a Pigmy, who flies headlong before the foe. Frescoes, vases, mosaics, statuettes, paintings, and signet-rings found in the ancient cities all attest the popularity of the little men. The odd pair of vases on the following page, one in the shape of a boar's head and the other in that of a ram's, are both adorned with a representation of the fierce combats between the Pigmies and the geese.
There has been an extraordinary display of erudition in the attempt to account for the endless repetition of Pigmy subjects in the houses of the Pompeians; but the learned and acute M. Champfleury "humbly hazards a conjecture," as he modestly expresses it, which commends itself at once to general acceptance. He thinks these Pigmy pictures were designed to amuse the children. No conjecture could be less erudite or more probable. We know, however, as a matter of record, that the walls of taverns and wine-shops were usually adorned with Pigmy pictures, such subjects being associated in every mind with pleasure and gayety. It is not difficult to imagine that a picture of a pugilistic encounter between Pigmies, like the one given at the head of this chapter, or a fanciful representation of a combat of Pigmy gladiators, of which many have been discovered, would be both welcome and suitable as tavern pictures in the Italian cities of the classic period.