What I've been up to / commonplace book

1. There's something about discussions of animals in antiquity that always makes me giggle, but here, the earnestness about the precise dates of the discoveries is particularly wonderful.

For example, until 1948 or soon after it was believed that Polybius was quite wrong with regard to his view of the differences between Indian and African elephants. It was then demonstrated, in 1948, that Polybius was perfectly right after all, because Africa possessed, and still possesses, two types of pachyderm, and the Ptolomies and Carthaginians used the smaller, more docile forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis). Further, it now appears conceivable that they may at times have been able to acquire hybrid elephants in North Africa.
-- Eric Marsden, "Polybius as Military Historian" in Entretiens XXI: Polybe, ed. E. Gasba, 1974, p. 270

Also: hybrid elephants! Like the Prius of the ancient world!

2. This quote from Theopompus on the nasty doings of Phillip of Macedon's so-called "companions": ἀνδροφόνοι γὰρ τὴν φύσιν ὄντες ἀνδρόπορνοι τὸν τρόπον ἦσαν [man-killers by nature, they were in practice man-whores]. I probably should not find ancient sexual invective as funny as I do.