WILD AND EXOTIC ANIMALS
An inscription from Rome documents a procurator Laurento ad elephantos, an official in charge of elephants, working in the Laurentine territory (EDR194126). This implies the existence of a vivarium in the area, a place where wild and exotic animals were kept, waiting for transport to the amphitheatre. In the necropolis of Ostia the funerary inscription was found of T. Flavius Stephanus, freedman of a Flavian Emperor (late first century AD), overseer of the camels. The text is accompanied by a relief of two camels on either side of an elephant (holding two poles with his trunk?). It has been suggested that he worked for the procurator of the elephants. Inscriptions from Rome, without specifying a place (there was another vivarium near Rome), also mention a praepositus herbariarum and an adiutor ad feras, keepers of herbivores and wild animals.
The funeral inscription and relief of T. Flavius Stephanus. Photo: Karavieri 2020, cat. nr. 172.
Remains of an African elephant (not fossils) were found in 1935, 1500 metres to the north of the "Villa of Plinius".[1] A bone of a camel was found by Michael Heinzelmann in the north-west part of Ostia, near the small river harbour. He suggests that camels were used for transportation in Ostia. A somewhat less romantic hypothesis is that this animal suffered from the transport from Africa to Ostia, died in Ostia, but should have been taken to the vivarium.
The discovery of the remains of an elephant in 1935. From Lattanzi et al. 2008.We also have some literary evidence. Juvenalis writes:
Nec venales elephanti, nec Latio aut usquam sub nostro sidere talis belva concipitur, sed furva gente petita arboribus Rutulis et Turni pascitur agro, Caesaris armentum. Elephants are not for sale, nor does that beast breed in Latium, or anywhere beneath our skies, but is fetched from the dark man's land, and fed in the Rutulian forest and the domains of Turnus; the herd is Caesar's. Juvenalis, Satires XII, 102-106. Translation G.G. Ramsay. The legendary Rutuli and their leader Turnus are a reference to Aeneas, who fought against them. Their capital was Ardea.
In Portus a relief was found of a ship transporting cages with lions, passing the lighthouse of Portus. About the transport of wild animals Claudianus wrote in 400 AD:
Ratibus pars ibat onustis per freta vel fluvios: exanguis dextera torpet remigis et propriam metuebat navita mercem. Per terram pars ducta rotis, longoque morantur ordine plaustra vias montanis plena triumphis et fera sollicitis vehitur captiva iuvencis, explebat quibus ante famem, quotiensque reflexi conspexere boves, pavidi temone recedunt. Boats laden with some of the animals traverse seas and rivers; bloodless from terror the rower's hand is stayed, for the sailor fears the merchandise he carries. Others are transported over land in wagons that block the roads with the long procession, bearing the spoils of the mountains. The wild beast is borne a captive by those troubled cattle on whom in times past he sated his hunger, and each time that the oxen turned and looked at their burden they pull away in terror from the pole. Claudianus, On the Consulship of Stilicho III, 325-332. Translation M. Platnauer. The animals presumably struck some fear in the inhabitants of the coastal villas as well, who could hear roaring lions and trumpeting elephants during lunch and dinner. For the inhabitants of Ostia the good news was, that the vivarium was on the other side of the Canale dello Stagno, where the wooden bridge may well have been a drawbridge.
The relief with lions from Portus. From Pavolini 1986, fig. 27.
(1) Directly to the east of the Via del Lido di Castel Porziano, a bit to the south of the intersection with the Viale di Castel Porziano.
