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NOVEMBER, 1881.]
FRAGMENTS OF THE INDIKA OF KTÉSIAS.
311
Ktêsias, who says well, for this dye is in fact disease (epilepsy), and neither can he be cut deeper and more brilliant than the renowned off by poison; nay if before drinking from it he Lydian purple.
should have swallowed anything deleterious, he In that part of India where the beetles vomits this, and escapes scatheless from all ill (kavőápoi) are met with, live the Kynokephaloi, effects, and while, as has been believed, all who are so called from their being like dogs in other asses, wherever found, and whether wild the shape of their head and in their general or tame, and even all solid-hoofed animals, have appearance. In other respects, however, they neither a huckle-bone (dotpayados) nor a gall in resemble mankind, and go about clad in the the liver, the Indian horned asses have according skins of wild beasts. They are moreover very to Ktësias both a huckle-bone and a gall in just, and do no sort of injury to any man. the liver. The huckle-bones are said to be black, They cannot speak, but atter a kind of howl. not only on the surface but all throughout as Notwithstanding this they comprehend the may be proved by breaking one to pieces. They language of the Indians. They subsist upon wild are fleeter not only than other asses but even animals, which their great fleetness of foot en- than horses and deer. On first starting they run ables them to capture with the utmost ease. leisurely, but they gradually strengthen their Having killed the prey they cut it into pieces, and pace, and then to overtake them, is, to use & roast it by the heat of the sun and not by fire. poeticexpression, the unattainable (ra 'akixyra).110 They keep goats however and sheep, whose milk When the dams have brought forth and begin to supplies them with drink, as the chase with food. lead out their young ones to the pastures, the I have mentioned them among the brutes, and males are in close attendance, and guard their with good reason, for they do not possess arti- offspring with devoted care. They roam about culate and intelligible speech like mankind.108 in the most desolate tracts of the Indian plain, FRAG. XXIV.
and when the hunters come to attack them, they Servius the Commentator on Virgil: Bneid, I, v, 659.
relegate their foals, being as yet but young and Acantho-i. e. with a flexible twig in imita tender, to graze in the rear, while in front they tion of which a robe is artificially adorned fight to defend them. Their mode of attack is and wrought. Varius makes this statement. to charge the horsemen, using the horn as the Ktêsins says that there are trees in India which weapon of assault, and this is so powerful, that grow wool.
nothing can withstand the blow it gives, but FRAG. XXV.
yields and snaps in two, or is perhaps shivered (A) Ælian, Hist. An. IV, 52.
to pieces and spoiled for further use. They I have ascertained by enquiry that wild sometimes even fall upon the horses, and so asses are found in India as big as horses. The cruelly rip up their sides with the horn that animal is entirely white, except about the head, their very entrails gush out. The riders, it which is of a reddish colour, while the eye may well be imagined, dread to encounter them gleams with azure. It has a horn upon its at close quarters, since the penalty of approachforehead about a cubit and a half long. This ing them is a miserable death both to man and horn is white at the base, crimson at the tip, and horse. And not only do they butt, but they jet black in the middle. These particoloured also kick most viciously and bite; and their bite horns are used, I understand, as drinking cups is much to be dreaded, for they tear away all by the Indians, not indeed by people of all the flesh they grasp with their teeth. It is ranks, but only by the magnates, who rimaccordingly impossible to take them alive if them at intervals with circlets of gold just they be full-grown; and hence they must be as they would adorn with bracelets the arm of despatched with such missiles as the spear or some beautiful statue. They say that whoever the arrow. This done, the Indians despoil them drinks out of this horn is protected against all of their horns, which they-ornament in the incurable diseases, for he can neither be seized manner already described. The flesh is so very by convulsions nor by what is called the sacred bitter that the Indians cannot use it for food."12
205 Herodotus mentions Kynokephaloi in Africa (IV, 192); conf. Diodor. III, 34; Augustine, C. D. XVI, 8; Aristot. Hist. Anim. 11, 8; Strabo, XVI, iv, 15; Philost. Vit. Apollon. VI, 1.
100 Cf. Herod. III, 33. 110 Used by Homer.
m Conf. Alian. III, 41; XVI, 20; Aristot. De partt. Anim. III, 2; Philostrat. Vit, Apoll. III, 2.
