Pausanias Analysis

Passage 9.21.4

← 9.21.3 9.21.5 →

Passage 9.21.4: Ctesias' martichora, an Indian man-eating beast, probably the tiger.

Historical Skeptical

Greek Text

θηρίον δὲ τὸ ἐν τῷ Κτησίου λόγῳ τῷ ἐς Ἰνδοὺς---μαρτιχόρα ὑπὸ τῶν Ἰνδῶν, ὑπὸ δὲ Ἑλλήνων φησὶν ἀνδροφάγον λελέχθαι---εἶναι πείθομαι τὸν τίγριν· ὀδόντας δὲ αὐτὸ τριστοίχους καθʼ ἑκατέραν τὴν γένυν καὶ κέντρα ἐπὶ ἄκρας ἔχειν τῆς οὐρᾶς, τούτοις δὲ τοῖς κέντροις ἐγγύθεν ἀμύνεσθαι καὶ ἀποπέμπειν ἐς τοὺς πορρωτέρω τοξότου ἀνδρὸς ὀιστῷ ἴσον, ταύτην οὐκ ἀληθῆ τὴν φήμην οἱ Ἰνδοὶ δέξασθαι δοκοῦσί μοι παρʼ ἀλλήλων ὑπὸ τοῦ ἄγαν ἐς τὸ θηρίον δείματος.

English Translation

The beast described in Ctesias' account of India—called by the Indians a martichora, but by the Greeks, he says, a man-eater—I am convinced was the tiger. As for the claim that it has triple rows of teeth on each jaw and spines on the tip of its tail, with which it strikes nearby targets and shoots at distant ones as accurately as a bowman with an arrow, that story, it seems to me, is an untrue report passed among the Indians themselves out of their great fear of the beast.

Proper Nouns

tiger (τίγρις) other
Ctesias (Κτήσιος) person
Hellenes (Ἕλληνες) person
Indians (Ἰνδοί) person
← 9.21.3 9.21.5 →