LIBER VIII · CAPUT 14
SERPENTS OF REMARKABLE SIZE
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
Megasthenes scribit in India serpentes in tantam magnitudinem adolescere, ut solidos hauriant cervos taurosque, Metrodorus circa Rhyndacum amnem in Ponto, supervolantes ut quamvis alte perniciterque alites haustu raptas absorbeant. nota est in Punicis bellis ad flumen Bagradam a Regulo imperatore ballistis tormentisque, ut oppidum aliquod, expugnata serpens CXX pedum longitudinis; pellis eius maxillaeque usque ad bellum Numantinum duravere Romae in templo. faciunt his fidem in Italia appellatae bovae in tautam amplitudinem exeuntes, ut Divo Claudio principe occisae in Vaticano solidus in alvo spectatus sit infans. aluntur primo bubuli lactis suctu, unde nomen traxere.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
Megasthenes informs us, that in India, serpents grow to such an immense size, as to swallow stags and bulls; while Metrodorus says, that about the river Rhyndacus, in Pontus, they seize and swallow the birds that are flying above them, however high and however rapid their flight. It is a well-known fact, that during the Punic war, at the river Bagrada, a serpent one hundred and twenty feet in length was taken by the Roman army under Regulus, being besieged, like a fortress, by means of balistæ and other engines of war. Its skin and jaws were preserved in a temple at Rome, down to the time of the Numantine war. The serpents which in Italy are known by the name of boa, render these accounts far from incredible, for they grow to such a vast size, that a child was found entire in the stomach of one of them, which was killed on the Vaticanian Hill during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. These are nourished, in the first instance, with the milk of the cow, and from this they take their name. As to the other animals, which have been of late repeatedly brought to Italy from all parts of the world, it is quite unnecessary to give any minute account of their form.