Research source

He also surrounded the temple with a wall, and placed there a strong guard of Taurian soldiery; which gave rise…

Date of account: Published 1886
Source: Mythical Monsters
Reference: Mythical Monsters · selected passage 59
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

He also surrounded the temple with a wall, and placed there a strong guard of Taurian soldiery; which gave rise to a prodigious fiction among the Greeks, for it was reported by them that bulls, breathing fire from their nostrils, kept watch over the shrine, and that a dragon guarded the skin, for by ambiguity the name of the Taurians was twisted into that of bulls, and the slaughter of guests furnished the fiction of the expiation of fire. In like manner they translated the name of the prefect Draco, to whom the custody of the temple had been assigned, into that of the monstrous and horrible creature of the poets."

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical compilation of unusual-animal reports and argument. Witness testimony, repetition between publications and the author's zoological assumptions all affect independence and reliability.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares morphology, behaviour and setting while keeping misidentification, folklore, exaggeration, error and known animals available as alternatives.

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