Æthiopia generates dragons reaching thirty paces long; they have no proper name, but they merely call them slayers of elephants, and they attain a great age. So far do the Æthiopian accounts narrate. The Phrygian history also states that dragons are born which reach ten paces in length; which daily in midsummer, at the hour when the forum is full of men in assembly, are wont to proceed from their caverns, and [near the river Rhyndacus], with part of the body on the ground, and the rest erect, with the neck gently stretched out, and gaping mouth, attract birds, either by their inspiration, or by some fascination, and that those which are drawn down by the inhalation of their breath glide down into their stomach--[and that they continue this until sunset,] but that after that, concealing themselves, they lay in ambush for the herds returning from the pasture to the stable, and inflict much injury, often killing the herdsmen and gorging themselves with food. BOOK VI. ch. 4. When dragons are about to eat fruit they suck the juice of the wild chicory, because this affords them a sovereign remedy against inflation. When they purpose lying in wait for a man or a beast, they eat deadly roots and herbs; a thing not unknown to Homer, for he makes mention of the dragon, who, lingering and twisting himself in front of his den, devoured noxious herbs. BOOK VI. ch. 21. In India, as I am told, there is great enmity between the dragon and elephant. Wherefore the dragons, aware that elephants are accustomed to pluck off boughs from trees for food, coil themselves beforehand in these trees, folding the tail half of their body round the limbs, and leaving the front half hanging like a rope. When an elephant approaches for the purpose of browsing on the young branches, the dragon leaping on him, tears out his eyes, and then squeezing his neck with his front part and lashing him with his tail, strangles him in this strange kind of noose. BOOK VI. ch. 22. The elephant has a great horror of the dragon. BOOK VI. ch. 17. In Idumea, or Judæa, during Herod's power, according to the statement of the natives of the country, a very beautiful, and just adolescent, woman, was beloved by a dragon of exceptional magnitude; who visited her betimes and slept with her as a lover. She, indeed, although her lover crept towards her as gently and quietly as lay in his power, yet utterly alarmed, withdrew herself from him; and to the end that a forgetfulness of his passion might result from the absence of his mistress, absented herself for the space of a month.