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The most majestic beast in ancient time

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  Quote Kids Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The most majestic beast in ancient time
    Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 03:04
What is the most fearful beast in ancient world? Lion, tiger, or Jeguar (Aztec, Maya)?????
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  Quote babyblue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 03:29
        dragons...
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  Quote coolstorm Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 03:31

Vampires

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  Quote vagabond Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 06:15

Kids - did you want live - or mythical

For live beasts - the cats seem to have the top place from Greece to Rome to Meso-America.

For Mythical - in Greco Roman civilizations I think it would till be one of the cats - hippogryph or  sphinx or the griffin.  Many ancients talk about the sphinx - most common reference is probably in Oedipus - http://www.artfromgreece.com/stories/v52.html

but the Arimaspi wars with the Griffins were also fearsome - not as well known - bur referenced by  Pliny, Herodotus and Pausanius - which is probably where the medieval writers like Mandeville got their ideas. 

From the  "Smaller Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology and Geography" - taken from Harry Thurston Peck - Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities  1898 says that they were "a people in the N. of Sythia, represented as men with only one eye, who fought with the griffins for the possession of the gold in their neighborhood.  The germ of the fable is perhaps to be recognized in the fact that the Ural mountains abound in gold." 

From the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography - 1854
"ARIMASPI (Arimaspoi), a Scythian people. The first extant notice of the Arimaspi is in Herodotus; but, earlier than this there was the poem of Aristeas of Proconessus, called Arimaspea (Arimaspea, Herod. iv. 14); and it is upon the evidence of this poem, rather than upon the independent testimony of Herodotus, that the stranger statements concerning the people in question rest. Such are those, as to their being one-eyed, and as to their stealing the gold from the Grypes; on the other hand, however, the more prosaic parts of the Herodotean account may be considered as the result of investigations on the part of the historian himself, especially the derivation of their name. (Herod. iv. 27.) Respecting this his evidence is, 1st, that it belonged to the Scythian language; 2ndly, that it was a compound of arima=one, and spou=eye; each of these words being Scythic glosses; or, to speak more precisely, glosses from the language of the Skoloti (Skolotoi). Hence, the name was not native; i.e. Arim-aspi was not an Arimaspian word.
 
also  from Herodotus:

"3 - CXVI. But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspians steal it from griffins. [2] But I do not believe this, that there are one-eyed men who have a nature otherwise the same as other men. [3] The most outlying lands, though, as they enclose and wholly surround all the rest of the world, are likely to have those things which we think the finest and the rarest."   "4 - XIII. There is also a story related in a poem by Aristeas son of Castrobius, a man of Proconnesus. This Aristeas, possessed by Phoebus, visited the Issedones; beyond these (he said) live the one-eyed Arimaspians, beyond whom are the griffins that guard gold, and beyond these again the Hyperboreans, whose territory reaches to the sea. [2] Except for the Hyperboreans, all these nations (and first the Arimaspians) are always at war with their neighbors; the Issedones were pushed from their lands by the Arimaspians, and the Scythians by the Issedones, and the Cimmerians, living by the southern sea, were hard pressed by the Scythians and left their country. Thus Aristeas' story does not agree with the Scythian account about this country."  "4 - XXVII. Of these too, then, we have knowledge; but as for what is north of them, it is from the Issedones that the tale comes of the one-eyed men and the griffins that guard gold; this is told by the Scythians, who have heard it from them; and we have taken it as true from the Scythians, and call these people by the Scythian name, Arimaspians; for in the Scythian tongue arima is one, and spou is the eye"

From Wells commentary on Herodotus:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atex t%3A1999.04.0028&query=page%3D%23255

From Pausanius:

"At Prasiae is a temple of Apollo. Hither they say are sent the first-fruits of the Hyperboreans, and the Hyperboreans are said to hand them over to the Arimaspi, the Arimaspi to the Issedones, from these the Scythians bring them to Sinope, thence they are carried by Greeks to Prasiae, and the Athenians take them to Delos. "    "These griffins, Aristeas2 of Proconnesus says in his poem, fight for the gold with the Arimaspi beyond the Issedones. The gold which the griffins guard, he says, comes out of the earth; the Arimaspi are men all born with one eye; griffins are beasts like lions, but with the beak and wings of an eagle. I will say no more about the griffins."

 
The only ancient image that I could find - from the Hermitage collection:
 

Then again Scylla and Charybdis were no lightweights.

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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 08:02

Marthikhor (Maneater, Manticore) or Caspian Tiger


One of the last caspian tigers killed in Mazandaran(Northern Iran), early 1940s

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  Quote Kids Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 14:28
it can be mythical or life one.

But my favorite beast is lion. The interesting thing is that although there is no lions in China, lions are still protrayed as king of beast (maybe tigers).
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  Quote Cywr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 14:38
Actualy Lions did once live in parts of Western China, Central Asia basicly, as well as much of Western Asia and parts of Southern Asia.
They are now virtualy extinct in Asia, except for a few areas in India.





Edited by Cywr
Arrrgh!!"
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 14:52
Wooly mammoth rocks
"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton
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  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2004 at 15:09
the beast of caerbannog!!!!!!
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  Quote cattus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 01:41
So the Caspian Tiger was hunted to extinction?
Cywr, could you explain the picture? I dont understand it and its relevancy. New sig?
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  Quote Yiannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 01:49

Originally posted by Cywr





 

Quickly, throw the Holy Granade!!!

The basis of a democratic state is liberty. Aristotle, Politics

Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
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  Quote cattus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 01:51
i dont get it, is that monty python?
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 07:56
It's the killer bunny.
It's no ordinary rabbit, that's the most fowl cruel animal you ever laid your eyes on!
Death awaits you all with sharp pointy teeth!


Edited by MixcoatlToltecahtecuhtli
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  Quote Kids Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 08:31
I know there both tigers and lions coexist in India prior the arrival of the colonial power. So, I like to know why tigers were more popular in Indian culture than lions? (is it because tigers were much to be fear?)

Can someone from India answer this for me?
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 09:50

So the Caspian Tiger was hunted to extinction?

Yes, Iran has already lost 2 of her greatest predators: The Persian Lion and the Caspian Tiger. Unless immediate measures are taken, 2 other elusive members of this family, the Asian Cheetah and the Persian Leopard, will be joining the list soon!


Asian Cheetah


Persian Leopard

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  Quote cattus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 14:31
I didnt know that Iran had cheetahs. The Persian Leopard is so beautiful, hope it can make a comeback.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 15:15
Man.
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  Quote demon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 18:19

Snakes are portrayed as evil in many cultures...probably one of the most commonly feared among mankind

 

Grrr..
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  Quote Omnipotence Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2004 at 19:59
 If the killer bunny in Monty Python doesn't count, then I have to stick with dragons.
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  Quote warhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Nov-2004 at 00:02
Tigers are physically more powerful than lions and on average heavier as well, the forest Bengal tigers are also more ferocious and bold, hunting young elephants and sub-adult Rhinos as regular meals, nothing of this sort could be achieved by lions not even an entire horde of them. There are in fact records of tigers killing grown adult elephants in India, by ripping their trunks and making them bleed to death.
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