Even after a letter full
of the most important accounts of public business, including copies of
senatus consulta (ad Fam. viii. 8), he harks back at the end to the
inevitable panthers. Cicero tells Atticus that he rebuked Caelius for
pressing him thus hard to do what his conscience could not approve,
and that it was not right, in his opinion, for a provincial governor
to set the people of Cibyra hunting for panthers for Roman games.[484]
From the same passage it would seem that Caelius had also been urging
him to take other steps in his province of which he disapproved, no
doubt with the same object of raising money for the ludi. This letter
to Caelius is not extant, but we may believe that Cicero had the
courage to reprove his old pupil, and that the constant worrying for
panthers was more than even his amiability could stand. But others
were less sensitive; and it is a well known fact in natural history
that the Roman games had a powerful effect, from this time forwards,
in diminishing the numbers of wild animals in the countries bordering
on the Mediterranean, and in bringing about the extinction of species.
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