Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Venatio

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

VENA'TIO (θήρα). A hunt, or hunting of wild beasts. (Cic. Sen. 16.) The illustration (Venatio/1.1), from a painting of the Nasonian sepulchre, represents a wild-boar hunt, which appears, from the numerous representations left of similar scenes, to have been a very favourite sport amongst the Romans. It likewise exhibits all the objects usually mentioned in connexion with the sport — the hunting-spear (venabulum), the bow (arcus), three hounds (canes venatici), one of which, on the right side, is held back by a leash or a slip (copula, lorum), the hunter (equus venator), and seven huntsmen (venatores), including the attendants.

2. A fight of wild beasts with men (Cic. Fam. vii. 1.), or with one another (Suet. Claud. 21.); both of which were commonly exhibited as a game in the Roman amphitheatre and circus, and are exhibited by the illustrations (Venatio/2.1) annexed; the one on the left hand representing a combat between a gladiator and wild beast, from a sepulchral bas-relief on a monument in the street of the tombs at Pompeii; the other, a contest between a bear and a rhinoceros, from a terra-cotta lamp found at Labicum.

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  Venatio/1.1
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  Venatio/2.1