Quo tempore Graecia, a barbaris incolumis et Romani quoque expers iugi, virtutum artiumque exemplis felicissime florebat, princeps quidam Atheniensium, Theophrastus nomine, vix orta luce venatum exiit.1 Praecesserant catuli, Sparta nuper atque Creta missi, et impositae famulorum cervicibus Cumaeae2 plagae. Ipse volucri subsequens equo, crispat manu venabulum interque comites maiestate non minus oris quam corporis mole eminet et, quamvis senio provectior, gaudet nemorum viriditati robustam inferre canitiem. Quo magis fidem inveniebat, quod a Nestore genus ducere maternum ferebatur.
Iamque sylvam penetraverant, cum ex nemore vicino bubulci quidam fistula cantillantes, pecus eo propellunt. Quibus conspectis, heros venator appropinquat, et num quam feram nuper vidissent, interrogat. Cui subulcorum maximus natu: "Vidimus omnino, domine, sed inusitatam nobis, et nescio an tibi quoque." Rogatus, ut explicaret, "Leonem," inquit, "videramus cum leone committi, et, quo miraculum augeatur, faemella erat: sed victor quis fuerit, pro certo affirmare non possum. Tam cito enim ambo nostros refugere conspectus, ut nec oculis prospicere, nec auribus sequi potuerimus."
Theophrastus, his auditis, ad certamen ferarum properare, praesertim insoliti generis, festinat, vixque hoc erat affatus, cum magno strepitu canes non procul irruerent. Concitatiore cursu illuc evehitur, ubi caninis latratibus sylva personabat; ac mox in conspectu terribile monstrum observat, non bestiam quidem, sed homine audacius quid, ac quasi supra hominem.
At a time when Greece, safe from barbarians and also free from the Roman yoke, was flourishing most happily with examples of virtues and arts, a certain leader of the Athenians, named Theophrastus, went out hunting at barely the break of dawn. The hunting dogs had gone ahead, recently sent from Sparta and Crete, and the Cumaean hunting nets were placed on the shoulders of the servants. Following on a swift horse, he brandishes a hunting spear in his hand and stands out among his companions no less in the majesty of his face than in the bulk of his body, and, although rather advanced in age, he delights in bringing his robust old age into the greenery of the forests. This seemed all the more credible because he was said to trace his maternal lineage from Nestor.
And now they had penetrated the forest, when from a nearby grove some herdsmen, playing tunes on their pipes, drove their cattle there. Seeing them, the hero hunter approaches and asks if they had recently seen any wild beast. To him the oldest of the swineherds replied: "We have indeed seen one, lord, but it was unusual to us, and I don't know if it would be to you as well." Asked to explain, he said, "We saw a lion fighting with a lion, and, to make the marvel greater, one was a female: but which was the victor, I cannot say for certain. For they both fled from our sight so quickly that we could neither see ahead with our eyes nor follow with our ears."
Theophrastus, having heard this, hastens to hurry to the battle of the beasts, especially of an unusual kind, and he had barely spoken when the dogs rushed in with a great noise not far away. He is carried there by a more rapid course, where the forest resounded with canine barks; and soon he observes a terrible monster in view, not a beast indeed, but something more daring than a human, and as if above human.