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Neither may we look for the mythological animals of the Persians, creatures of a still bolder imagination: the martichore, or man-destroyer, bearing a human head on the body of a lion, terminated by the tail of a scorpion[62]; the griffon, guardian of treasures, half eagle, half lion[63]; the cartazonon, or wild ass, armed with a long horn on its forehead[64].

Ctesias, who has described these as real animals, has been looked upon by many authors as an inventor of fables; whereas he has merely attributed an actual existence to emblematical figures. These imaginary compositions have been seen in modern times sculptured upon the ruins of Persepolis[65]. What they were intended to signify we shall probably never know; but of this much we are certain, that they do not represent actual beings.

Agatharchidas, another fabricator of animals, drew his information in all probability from a similar source. The ancient Egyptian monuments still furnish us with numerous fantastic representations, in which the parts of different species are combined: gods are often figured with a human body and the head of an animal, and animals are seen with human heads; thus giving rise to the cynocephali, sphinxes, and satyrs of ancient naturalists. The custom of representing in the same painting men of very different sizes, of making the king or the conqueror gigantic, the subjects or the conquered three or four times smaller, must have given rise to the fable of the pigmies. It was in some corner of one of these monuments that Agatharchidas must have seen his carnivorous bull, which, with mouth extending from ear to ear, devoured every other animal[66]. Certainly no naturalist would admit the existence of such an animal; for nature never combines either cloven hoofs or horns with teeth adapted for devouring animal food.