Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

YENAT10

409

VENEFICIUM.

among which we find mention of 600 lions,
and 18 or 20 elephants; the latter fought
■with Gaetulians, who hurled darts against
them, and they attempted to Break through
the railings (clathri) by which they were
separated from the spectators. To guard
aaainst this danger Julius Caesar surrounded
the arena of the amphitheatre with trenches
(niripi). In the games exhibited by J. Caesar
in his third consulship, b. c. 45, the venatio
lasted for five days, and was conducted with
extraordinary splendour. Cameleopards or
giraffes were then for the first time seen in
Italy. The venationes seem to have been
first confined to the ludi circenses, but during
the later times of the republic, and under the
empire, they were frequently exhibited on
the celebration of triumphs, and on many
other occasions, with the view of pleasing the
people. The passion for these shows con-
tinued to increase under the empire, and the
number of beasts sometimes slaughtered seems

almost incredible. Under the emperors we
read of a particular kind of venatio, in which
the beasts were not killed by bestiarii, but
were given up to the people, who were al-
lowed to rush into the area of the circus and
carry away what they pleased. On such oc-
casions a number of large trees, which had
been torn up by the roots, was planted in the
circus, which thus resembled a forest, and
none of the more savage animals were admit-
ted into it. One of the most extraordinary
venationes of this kind was that given by
Probus, in which there were 1000 ostriches,
1000 stags, 1000 boars, 1000 deer, and num-
bers of wild goats, wild sheep, and other
animals of the same kind. The more savage
animals were slain by the bestiarii in the
amphitheatre, and not in the circus. Thus,
in the day succeeding the venatio of Probus
just mentioned, there were slain in the am-
phitheatre 100 lions and 100 lionesses, 100
Libyan and 100 Syrian leopards, and 300 bears.

A

Venationes. (From Bas-reliefs on the Tomb of Sc-anrus at Fompeii.)

VENEFICIUM, the crime of poisoning, is
frequently mentioned in Roman history.
Women were most addicted to it: but it
seems not improbable that this charge was
frequently brought against females without
sufficient evidence of their guilt, like that of
witchcraft in Europe in the middle ages.
We find females condemned to death for this
crime in seasons of pestilence, when the peo-

and ready to attribute the calamities under
which they suffer to the arts of evil-disposed
persons. Thus the Athenians, when the
pestilence raged in their city during the Pe-
loponnesian war, supposed the wells to have
been poisoned by the Peloponncsians, and
similar instances occur in the history of
almost all states. Still, however, the crime
of poisoning seems to have been much more

pie are always in an excited state of mind, I frequent in ancient than in modern times ;