Note 1288 — Chapter XII · REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY

The mantichora (see Fig. 8, p. 277 above) was a beast described by Pliny, Hist. nat., VIII, 21, as follows (transl. in Bohn’s edit., vol. ii, p. 280): “It has a triple row of teeth which fit into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and azure eyes, is of the color of blood, has the body of a lion, and a tail ending in a sting, like that of a scorpion. Its voice resembles the union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; it is of excessive swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh.” Doberentz shows the route by which the story of this extraordinary combination found its way from its Oriental place of origin to the Weltchronik of Rudolf of Hohen-Ems.

This route was the same as that taken by most of the other marvels which came to this chronicle. The beast appears illustrated on the monuments of Persepolis; possibly it was thought to be the king of the evil beasts of Ahriman, the Zoroastrian god of darkness. Ctesias describes it in his Indica; thence it probably made its way to the Historia animalium of Aristotle, thence to the Chorographia Pliniana, thence to Solinus, thence to the De imagine mundi, and thence to Rudolf’s chronicle (Doberentz, op. cit., pp. 175–180).