Thrown to the Lions

[Flavivs Aetivs]

This is interesting - so animals would be more likely to attack moving victims. That might explain some of the stories of Christians in the arena being unmolested by the animals - you'd need either a pretty strong will, or a lack of fear of death, to stand immobile when surrounded by ravenous beasts! The men in the arena with the whips may have been used to make unwilling victims run about more...

I still wonder how this would have worked with large numbers of victims though - the various accounts of prisoners of war being thrown to the beasts, for example. I suppose they could have been sent into the arena in small groups - surely the animals would be unlikely to attack a big group of people, however defenceless they may have looked?

That would make sense - a predator will back off if a group of baboons attacks, so considering humans are just a more advanced baboon to them, they probably wouldn't attack large groups of prisoners without significant numbers.

[Robert]

Think back to my comment on the chicken coop. A lion will charge a herd of zebra, as they scatter, it will single out a single one and move in for the kill. With a bunch of hysterical humans running around, it is a killing spree. Baboons have fangs as long as the lions (well, the larger males do) and they do attack a preditor, being able to inflict harm, something a terrified condemed victim lacks. So it is not the shape, but the behaviour of the "prey" that governs the respons.