No. 315. orders, gaining a livelihood by their occupation; and all the tricks and gestures were resorted to on those occasions, which the ingenuity of a sprightly people could suggest, to excite the generosity of the bystanders, and contribute to their amusement. Bull-fights were also among their sports, and 2 Bull-fights. 3 4 Thebes. ap men appear occasionally to have courted the probation of their friends, and displayed their courage and dexterity, in attacking a bull singlehanded, and baffling his attacks.* It does not, however, appear that the Egyptians condemned culprits, or captives taken in war, to combat with wild beasts, for the amusement of an unfeeling assembly, as in ancient Rome; nor did they compel them to fight as gladiators, to gratify a depraved taste, which delighted in exhibitions revolting to humanity; and, though we may feel disposed to blame them for compelling prisoners of war to labour at public works, it must be recollected that the usages of society, in those early ages, tolerated a custom which modern civilisation has abandoned; and it is evident that neither the refined Greeks nor Romans can vie with the Egyptians in their manner of treating slaves: a remarkable proof of which is evinced in the behaviour of Potiphar towards Joseph; for in few countries, even at the present day, would the crime, of which he was supposed guilty, have been visited with more lenient punishment. Bull-fights appear sometimes to have been encouraged by the higher classes, and to have been held in the dromos, or avenue, leading to their large temples; as Strabo describes * at Memphis, before the temple of Vulcan; and prizes were awarded to the owner of the victorious combatant. Great care, he adds, was taken in their mode of training the animals for this purpose, as much as is usually bestowed on horses, and from their being customary in the metropolis of Lower Egypt, we may conclude that bull-fights were not a Greek or Roman introduction, but of early Egyptian date, particularly since we see them noticed, at the most remote period, at Thebes and Beni Hassan. |