Does anyone know of evidence for lions in Greece during the Bronze age? Just
curiosity from a lecturer's comment one day.
From Herodotus Book 7, describing Xerxes' passage through Macedonia in 480
BC:
"So, as he was making his way by this way, lions for him attacked his
food-carrying camels; for going down constantly during the nights and
leaving their customary abodes, the lions were touching nothing else,
neither yoke-animal nor human being, but were working havoc on the camels
alone. I marvel then about the cause, which ever it was that was compelling
the lions from the others to keep themselves away and attack the camels,
which beast neither previously they had seen, nor had they had experience
of it.
Now, there are at those spots both many lions and wild oxen, whose horns
are the very large ones that come into the Greeks. And the boundary for the
lions is the river Nestus that flows through Abdera and the Achelous that
flows through Acarnania; for neither in what's toward the east of the
Nestus anywhere in Europe on this side would one see a lion nor toward the
west of the Achelous on the remaining mainland, but in the land between
those rivers they come to be."
--
Ronald I. Orenstein Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2 mailto:ron.orenstein@rogers.com