Naturalis historia 8.11.32

8.11.32

Elephantos fert Africa ultra Syrticas solitudines et in Mauretania, ferunt Aethiopes et Trogodytae, ut dictum est, sed maximos India bellantesque cum iis perpetua discordia dracones tantae magnitudinis et ipsos, ut circumplexu facili ambiant nexuque nodi praestringant. conmoritur ea dimicatio, victusque conruens conplexum elidit pondere.

CHAP. 11. (11.)—IN WHAT COUNTRIES THE ELEPHANT IS FOUND; THE ANTIPATHY OF THE ELEPHANT AND THE DRAGON. Africa produces elephants, beyond the deserts of the Syrtes, and in Mauritania; they are found also in the. countries of the Æthiopians and the Troglodytæ as mentioned above. But it is India that produces the largest, as well as the dragon, which is perpetually at war with the elephant, and is itself of so enormous a size, as easily to envelope the elephants with its folds, and encircle them in its coils. The contest is equally fatal to both; the elephant, vanquished, falls to the earth, and by its weight, crushes the dragon which is entwined around it.