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a little quote
Feb. 21st, 2014 01:30 amJust so you know where any alcoholic eleven-foot lions in my writing come from:
The animal used most frequently in the arena was the legendary Libyan lion: the most magnificent specimens of this mutant species grew to eleven feet in length, with enormous paws armed with razorsharp claws of sabre-size dimensions; even their engorged testicles were as large as a man’s head. The Libyan lion was the ultimate killing machine, especially if deprived of its usual diet: in the wild, on the then-fertile terrain of the Ideban Marzuq, it could lay waste to two hundred wildebeests and ostriches in one sitting. Armies of slaves were expended in the capture of these majestic beasts – they were impervious to tranquillizer arrows [...] The captured lions could be pacified by feeding them with almost-infinite quantities of Armenian brandy, the addictive qualities of which put them into near-comatose trances of gurgling tranquility and rendered them amenable to their long journey over the Mediterranean. But as soon as they reached the port of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber river, their intake of brandy would be abruptly ended, sending them into a state of ever-greater rampant fury which reached its pinnacle at the moment of their entrance into the arena.
- Caligula: Divine Carnage, by Stephen Barber & Jeremy Reed
The animal used most frequently in the arena was the legendary Libyan lion: the most magnificent specimens of this mutant species grew to eleven feet in length, with enormous paws armed with razorsharp claws of sabre-size dimensions; even their engorged testicles were as large as a man’s head. The Libyan lion was the ultimate killing machine, especially if deprived of its usual diet: in the wild, on the then-fertile terrain of the Ideban Marzuq, it could lay waste to two hundred wildebeests and ostriches in one sitting. Armies of slaves were expended in the capture of these majestic beasts – they were impervious to tranquillizer arrows [...] The captured lions could be pacified by feeding them with almost-infinite quantities of Armenian brandy, the addictive qualities of which put them into near-comatose trances of gurgling tranquility and rendered them amenable to their long journey over the Mediterranean. But as soon as they reached the port of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber river, their intake of brandy would be abruptly ended, sending them into a state of ever-greater rampant fury which reached its pinnacle at the moment of their entrance into the arena.
- Caligula: Divine Carnage, by Stephen Barber & Jeremy Reed
