c. B.C. 19.—"And Augustus came to Samos, and again passed the winter there ... and all sorts of embassies came to him; and the Indians who had previously sent messages proclaiming friendship, now sent to make a solemn treaty, with presents, and among other things including tigers, which were then seen for the first time by the Romans; and if I am not mistaken by the Greeks also."—Dio Cassius, liv. 9. [See Merivale, Hist. Romans, ed. 1865, iv. 176.]
c. B.C. 19.—
"... duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus, Hyrcanaeque admôrunt ubera tigres."
Aen. iv. 366-7.
c. A.D. 70.—"The Emperor Augustus ... in the yeere that Q. Tubero and Fabius Maximus were Consuls together ... was the first of all others that shewed a tame tygre within a cage: but the Emperour Claudius foure at once.... Tygres are bred in Hircania and India: this beast is most dreadful for incomparable swiftness."—Pliny, by Ph. Holland, i. 204.
c. 80-90.—"Wherefore the land is called Dachanabadēs (see [DECCAN]), for the South is called Dachanos in their tongue. And the land that lies in the interior above this towards the East embraces many tracts, some of them of deserts or of great mountains, with all kinds of wild beasts, panthers and tigers (τίγρεις) and elephants, and immense serpents (δράκοντας) and hyenas (κροκόττας) and cynocephala of many species, and many and populous nations till you come to the Ganges."—Periplus, § 50.
c. A.D. 180.—"That beast again, in the talk of Ctesias about the Indians, which is alleged to be called by them Martióra (Martichóra), and by the Greeks Androphagus (Man-eater), I am convinced is really the tiger (τὸν τίγριν). The story that he has a triple range of teeth in each jaw, and sharp prickles at the tip of his tail which he shoots at those who are at a distance, like the arrows of an archer,—I don't believe it to be true, but only to have been generated by the excessive fear which the beast inspires. They have been wrong also about his colour;—no doubt when they see him in the bright sunlight he takes that colour and looks red; or perhaps it may be because of his going so fast, and because even when not running he is constantly darting from side to side; and then (to be sure) it is always from a long way off that they see him."—Pausanias, IX. xxi. 4. [See Frazer's tr. i. 470; v. 86. Martichoras is here Pers. mardumkhwūr, 'eater of men.']
1298.—"Enchore sachiés qe le Grant Sire a bien leopars asez qe tuit sunt bon da chacer et da prendre bestes.... Il ha plosors lyons grandismes, greignors asez qe cele de Babilonie. Il sunt de mout biaus poil et de mout biaus coleor, car il sunt tout vergés por lonc, noir et vermoil et blance. Il sunt afaités a prandre sengler sauvajes et les bueff sauvajes, et orses et asnes sauvajes et cerf et cavriolz et autres bestes."—Marco Polo, Geog. Text, ch. xcii. Thus Marco Polo can only speak of this huge animal, striped black and red and white, as of a Lion. And a medieval Bestiary has a chapter on the Tigre which begins: "Une Beste est qui est apelée Tigre, c'est une maniere de serpent."—(In Cahier et Martin, Mélanges d' Archéol. ii. 140).
1474.—"This meane while there came in certein men sent from a Prince of India, wth certain strange beastes, the first whereof was a leonza ledde in a chayne by one that had skyll, which they call in their languaige Babureth. She is like vnto a lyonesse; but she is redde coloured, streaked all over wth black strykes; her face is redde wth certain white and blacke spottes, the bealy white, and tayled like the lyon: seemyng to be a marvailouse fiers beast."—Josafa Barbaro, Hak. Soc. pp. 53-54. Here again is an excellent description of a tiger, but that name seems unknown to the traveller. Babureth is in the Ital. original Baburth, Pers. babr, a tiger.