“Crocottas are apparently the offspring of dog and wolf; they crush all
  their food with their teeth and forthwith gulp it down to be assimilated
  by the belly.”

Again, of the Leucrocotta: 

  “A most destructive beast about the size of an ass, with legs of a deer,
  the neck, tail and breast of a lion, a badger’s head, cloven hoof, mouth
  slit to the ears, and, in place of teeth, a solid line of bone.”

Also, in VIII, 30 (45), he says: 

  “The lioness of Ethiopia by copulation with a hyaena brings forth the
  crocotta.”

Capitolinus (Life of Antoninus Pius, 10, 9) remarks that the first Antoninus had exhibited the animal in Rome.  Further, see Aelian, VII, 22.] The last named animal is of Indian origin, and was then for the first time, so far as I am aware, introduced into Rome.  It has the skin of lion and tiger mingled and the appearance of those animals, as also of the wolf and fox, curiously blended.  The entire cage in the theatre had been so constructed as to resemble a boat in form, so that it would both receive and discharge four hundred beasts at once, [Footnote:  These cages were often made in various odd shapes and opened automatically.  Compare the closing sentences of the preceding book.] and then, as it suddenly fell apart, there came rushing up bears, lionesses, panthers, lions, ostriches, wild asses, bisons (this is a kind of cattle of foreign species and appearance),—­the result being that altogether seven hundred wild and tame beasts at once were seen running about and were slaughtered.  For, to correspond with the duration of the festival, seven days, the number of animals was also seven times one hundred.

[Sidenote:—­2—­] On Mount Vesuvius a great gush of fire burst out and there were bellowings mighty enough to be heard in Capua, where I live whenever I am in Italy.  This place I have selected for various reasons, chief of which is its quiet, that enables me to get leisure from city affairs and to write on this compilation.  As a result of the Vesuvian phenomena it was believed that there would be a change in the political status of Plautianus.  In very truth Plautianus had grown great and more than great, so that even the populace at the hippodrome exclaimed:  “Why do you tremble?  Why are you pale?  You possess more than the three.”  They did not say this to his face, of course, but differently.  And by “three” they indicated Severus and his sons, Antoninus and Geta.  Plautianus’s pallor and his trembling were in fact due to the life that he lived, the hopes that he hoped, and the fears that he feared.  Still, for a time most of this eluded Severus’s individual notice, or else he knew it but pretended the opposite.  When, however, his brother Geta on his deathbed revealed to him the whole attitude of Plautianus,—­for Geta hated the prefect and now no longer feared him,—­the emperor set up a bronze statue of his brother in the Forum and no longer held his minister in equal honor;