06-12-2008, 09:21 PM
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 | Puritanboard Librarian | | Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Warrenton, VA, USA
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Thanks, Tim. I did a little digging just because this intrigued me and found this episode cited by Livy and others referred to as "perhaps the most famous cryptozoological event in the records of the ancient world": Quote:
It was in all probability, an enormous specimen of this serpent, which once threw a whole Roman army into dismay. The fact is recorded by Valerius Maximus, who quotes it from one of the lost books of Livy, where it was detailed at greater length. He relates, that near the river Bagrada, in Africa, a snake was seen of so enormous a magnitude as to prevent the army of Attilius Regulus from the use of the river; and which after having snatched up several soldiers with its enormous mouth, and killed several others by striking and squeezing them with the spires of its tail, was at length destroyed by assailing it with all the force of military engines and showers of stones, after it had withstood the attacks of their spears and darts. It was regarded by the whole army as a more formidable enemy than even Carthage itself.
The whole adjacent region was tainted with the pestilential effulvia proceeding from its remains, as were the waters with its blood, so as to oblige the Roman army to shift its station. The skin of this monster, measuring in length one hundred and twenty feet, was sent to Rome as a trophy, and was there suspended in a temple, where it remained till the time of the Numidian war. ” -- James G. Percival, The Wonders of the World (1836), p. 421
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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project
"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole
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