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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roman Collector, post: 2670493, member: 75937&quot;]I was talking about this with a classicist in Greece, who reminds me that <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0690,001:4" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0690,001:4" rel="nofollow">Virgil&#039;s 4th Eclogue</a> contains a similar sentiment about lions and herds living peacefully in <i>Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas; magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo</i> -- &quot;the last age of the Cumaean prophecy&quot; when &quot;the great cycle of periods is born anew.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Among many things to come at that time, Virgil&#039;s poem reads, <i>nec magnos metuent armenta leones</i> -- &quot;and no more will cattle fear great lions&quot; (Line 22).</p><p><br /></p><p>So we have a whole series of similarly-themed notions. Wolves and lambs (Hebrew Bible); lions and cattle (Roman Paganism); lions and lambs (English-language, Christian-influenced poetry, literature, and song). The whole thing seems to have been a symbolic adynaton in common use, a recurring symbol for paradise (the elimination of combat even in the animal kingdom, implying also the elimination of hunger and other forms of suffering).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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