Historically, a comparison of the

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living Felidae, cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily pr ...

(''Panthera tigris'') versus the

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adu ...

(''Panthera leo'') has been a popular topic of discussion by

hunter Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

s, naturalists, artists and poets, and has inspired the popular imagination. In the past, lions and tigers reportedly competed in the wilderness, where their ranges overlapped in

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

. The most common reported circumstance of their meeting is in captivity, either deliberately or by accident.

Opinions

In general, the lion is a

social animal Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies. Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wa ...

, while the tiger is

solitary Solitary is the state of being alone or in solitude. The term may refer to: * shortened form of solitary confinement * Solitary animal, an animal that does not live with others in its species * Solitary but social, a type of social organization ...

, though at times, male lions are separate from the females, and tigers socialise, usually for mating, and rarely for hunts. There are differing scenarios regarding whether tigers would beat lions in fights, or vice-versa:

Favoring the tiger

* Craig Saffoe, a

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize ...

and the curator of great cats at the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., said that the outcome of a given fight totally depended on the individuals, with their fighting style, physiology and history, but that he would bet on the tiger winning. He also reckoned that in a fight, the biggest tigers, jaguars and would come out on top against the likes of

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. ...

snow leopard The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a felid in the genus '' Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is es ...

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, ...

s, and

cheetah The cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus'') is a large cat native to Africa and central Iran. It is the fastest land animal, estimated to be capable of running at with the fastest reliably recorded speeds being , and as such has evolved specialized ...

s. Saffoe added that the most interesting match-up in his opinion might be between good-sized Bengal tigers and male

jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

s, as both had roughly the same speed, temperament, size and strength.

Favoring the lion

* Dave Hoover, the animal trainer for Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus, mentions that he lost many tigers to male lions: "I have to keep the male lions from killing each other. I have to keep them from killing the tigers .. I have lost tigers." Hoover had lions ganging up on his tigers: "Two lions killed one of his tigers during training in Ojus, Fla., in 1966", and in another newspaper Hoover states he has trouble "keeping the lion from attacking the lone tiger".

Coexistence in the Eurasian wilderness

According to Colin Tudge (2011), given that both cats hunt large

herbivore A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpar ...

s, it is likely that they had been in competition in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. Despite their social nature, lions might have competed with tigers one-against-one, as they would with each other. Apart from the possibility of competition, there are legends of Asiatic lions and tigers breeding to produce hybrid offspring, which would be ligers or tigons. From the

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

record, besides

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...

, it would appear that the modern lion and tiger were present in Eurasia since the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

, when now-extinct relatives also existed there. Additionally, in the days before Indian Independence, the

Maharaja of Gwalior Gwalior state was a semi-autonomous Maratha state. It was centred in modern-day Madhya Pradesh, arising due to the rise of the Maratha Empire and fragmentation of the Mughal Empire. It was ruled by the House of Scindia (anglicized from Shin ...

introduced African lions into his area, which is a habitat for Bengal tigers.

Asiatic lion and Bengal tiger

As of the

21st century The 21st (twenty-first) century is the current century in the ''Anno Domini'' era or Common Era, under the Gregorian calendar. It began on 1 January 2001 ( MMI) and will end on 31 December 2100 ( MMC). Marking the beginning of the 21st centur ...

, India is the only country to have both wild lions and tigers, specifically

Asiatic lion The Asiatic lion is a population of '' Panthera leo leo'' that today survives in the wild only in India. Since the turn of the 20th century, its range has been restricted to Gir National Park and the surrounding areas in the Indian state of Gujar ...

s and

Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the '' Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna. The tiger is estimated to have been present i ...

s. Though they do not share the same territory, they did in the past, and there is a project mentioned below that could lead to their meeting in the wild. The possibility of conflict between lions and tigers had been raised in relation to India's

Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project The Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project is an initiative of the Indian Government to provide safeguards to the Asiatic lion (''Panthera leo leo'') from extinction in the wild by means of reintroduction. The last wild population of the Asiatic lion ...

, which was meant to introduce the lions of Gir Forest in the

State State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

, to another reserve which is considered to be within the former range of the lion, that is

Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary Kuno National Park is national park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, India. It derives its name from Kuno River. It was established in 1981 as a wildlife sanctuary with an initial area of in the Sheopur and Morena districts. In 2018 ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the second ...

, before December 2017. Kuno was reported to contain some tigers that came from Ranthambore National Park, including one called 'T-38'. Concerns were raised that the co-presence of lions and tigers would "trigger frequent clashes". At the same, the American biologist Craig Packer and his students at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

considered that a group of lions (two to three males) would have a clear advantage over a tiger and a pack of lionesses (two to four females) would have a similar advantage over a tigress, despite the general advantage of the latter in weight or height.

Coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

s of male lions usually fight as a group against territorial rivals, so he mentions that a tiger may have an advantage in a one-on-one encounter, but they also considered that the additional fighting experience and mane perhaps confer an advantage to a lone male lion since the tiger's fighting style evolved in the absence of a mane. Despite all of this, Craig Packer is of the opinion that for Asiatic lions to survive in an area with Bengal tigers, the lions would have to be moved there as intact groups rather than as individuals. Although the habitats of Indian lions and tigers are similar means that they both live in conditions that favour solitary hunters of prey, these lions are social like their African relatives, and may form fighting groups, whereas tigers are usually solitary. The tiger reserves of Ranthambhore and Sariska in

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern ...

, Gir Forest and Kuno-Palpur are all located in the

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...

Khathiar–Gir dry deciduous forests The Khathiar–Gir dry deciduous forests (also Kathiarbar-Gir or Kathiawar-Gir) is a mostly arid ecoregion in northwestern India that stretches over across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The dry deciduous forests in the region are domi ...

. In early 2019, a tiger trekked from Madhya Pradesh to Gujarat, before apparently dying there of starvation. Otherwise, in Gujarat is the Dangs' Forest, which is a potential habit of the tiger.

Reginald Innes Pocock Reginald Innes Pocock Fellow of the Royal Society, F.R.S. (4 March 1863 – 9 August 1947) was a British zoologist. Pocock was born in Clifton, Bristol, the fourth son of Rev. Nicholas Pocock (historian), Nicholas Pocock and Edith Prichard. He ...

(1939) mentioned that some people had the opinion that the tiger played a role in the near-extinction of the Indian lion, but he dismissed this view as 'fanciful'. According to him, there was evidence that tigers inhabited the Indian Subcontinent before lions. The tigers likely entered

Northern India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

from the eastern end of the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

, through

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, and started spreading throughout the area, before the lions likely entered Northern India from

Balochistan Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, and spread to places like the Bengal and the Nerbudda River. Because of that, before the presence of man could limit the spread of lions, tigers reached parts of India that lions did not reach. However, the presence of tigers throughout India did not stop the spread of lions there, in the first place, so Pocock said that it is unlikely that Bengal tigers played a role, significant or subordinate, in the near-extinction of the Indian lion, rather, that man was responsible for it, as was the case with the decline in tigers' numbers. As such, Pocock thought that it was unlikely that serious competition between them regularly occurred, and that even if Indian lions and tigers met, the chance that they would fight for survival was as good as the chance that they would choose to avoid each other, and that their chances of success, if they were to clash, were as good as each other's. File:Asiatic Lion Gir Forest.jpg, An Asiatic lion in Gir Forest,

' ecoregion, Gujarat, India File:Kuno river.jpg, Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, India File:Ranthambore Tiger Reserve (3619932614).jpg, T-12 the male Bengal tiger in Ranthambore National Park, Khathiar–Gir dry deciduous forests' ecoregion, Rajasthan, India

Asiatic lion and Caspian tiger

Before the end of the 20th century, Asiatic lions and

Caspian tiger The Caspian tiger was a ''Panthera tigris tigris'' population native to eastern Turkey, northern Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus around the Caspian Sea, Central Asia to northern Afghanistan, and the Xinjiang region in western China. Until the M ...

s had occurred in other Asian or Eurasian nations, including Iran. As such, there is a word for 'Lion', which can also mean 'Tiger', and is used in Iran,

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

and other areas, that is ''Sher'' or ''Shir'' ( fa, ), and its significance is discussed below. Not only did Heptner and Sludskiy talk about the lion and tiger both occurring in places like Iran,

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

and

Transcaucasia The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

, they also mentioned that the ranges of the lion and tiger often overlapped, occurring in riverine habitats which were abundant in prey like

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...

and

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species i ...

. File:Antoin Sevruguin 7 Men with live lion.jpg, Men with a chained lion in Iran, by

Antoin Sevruguin Antoin Sevruguin ( fa, آنتوان سورگین; 1851–1933) was an Iranian photographer of Armenian- Georgian descent, in Persia during the reign of the Qajar dynasty (1785–1925). Early life Born into a Russian family of Armenian- Georgian or ...

, File:TigrisRiver.JPG, The

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

River outside the city of

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

, in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

. Both the lion and the tiger used to be present in this area. File:Caspian tiger, north iran.jpg, A Caspian tiger killed in northern

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, early 1940s

Observed fights

In the

circuses A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicycli ...

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...

, exotic beasts were commonly pitted against each other, including

Barbary lion The Barbary lion, also called the North African lion, Berber lion, Atlas lion, and Egyptian lion, is an extinct population of the lion subspecies '' Panthera leo leo''. It lived in the mountains and deserts of the Barbary Coast of North Africa, ...

s and tigers. A

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

in the House of the Faun in

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was burie ...

shows a fight between a lion and a tiger. There are different accounts of which of these

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage ...

s gained the victory. Although lions and tigers can be kept together in harmony in captivity, fatal conflicts have also been recorded. In addition to historical recordings, clashes between lions and tigers were reported or even caught on

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with ...

in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was not always clear which species regularly beat the other, according to Craig Packer (2015).

In captivity

* In 1830, a tiger attacked a lion at a menagerie in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Despite having been caught by surprise, the lion maneuvered the tiger onto its back and clamped fatal jaws on its throat. * In 1911, Frank Bostock gave an account of a lion killing a tiger. * In 1934, a fully grown African lion killed a mature Bengal tiger a short time after these circus animals were unloaded from the train and before trainers could separate them. * In 1937, a vigorous lion and tiger fought in a German zoo, the lion died as a result. * 3 June 1949, in Fitchburg when the Biller Brothers circus moved on to its next stop, it left behind the remains of a 1000 pound tiger. The tiger was killed the night before in a savage battle with a lion. * At the South Perth Zoo in 1949, in a three-minute fight between a lion and a tiger, the lion killed the tiger. The fight occurred when the tiger put his head through a connecting slide. The lion caught the tiger by the throat, and, dragging it through the opening, killed it before the keepers arrived. * In 1956, Roman Proske's black maned lion, Achmed jumped onto the back of a tiger though one of the trainers intervened by a fork hitting the lion, the tiger ended up killing the lion by a single bite. * In 1959, the Maharaja of Gwalior experimented if lions could thrive in India despite their decline, the lions used were African specimens and defined as fine. After a single day the male lion was killed from a fight of one of the tigers, the previous pair of lions having already left the area by the time of the lion's death * In September 2010, a Bengal tiger at the Ankara Zoo passed through a gap, between its cage and that of a lion, and killed it with a single paw swipe. "The tiger severed the lion's

jugular vein The jugular veins are veins that take deoxygenated blood from the head back to the heart via the superior vena cava. The internal jugular vein descends next to the internal carotid artery and continues posteriorly to the sternocleidomastoid mu ...

in a single stroke with its paw, leaving the animal dying in a pool of blood," officials said. The tiger was also said to previously injured the lion a year before. However, despite being reported in local news at the time, the incident was reported in international media only in March 2011.

Arts and literature

Art

Battles between the two were painted in the 18th and 19th centuries by

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

George Stubbs George Stubbs (25 August 1724 – 10 July 1806) was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Self-trained, Stubbs learnt his skills independently from other great artists of the 18th century such as Joshua Reynolds, Reynold ...

and James Ward. James Ward's paintings portrayed lion victories in accordance with the lion's symbolic value in Britain, and have been described as less realistic than Stubbs. The British Seringapatam medal shows a lion defeating a tiger in battle; the medal commemorated the British victory at the 1799

Battle of Seringapatam A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and for ...

(in the town now known as

Srirangapatna Srirangapatna is a town and headquarters of one of the seven Taluks of Mandya district, in the Indian State of Karnataka. It gets its name from the Ranganthaswamy temple consecrated at around 984 CE. Later, under the British rule the city ...

in India) over

Tipu Sultan Tipu Sultan (born Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu, 1 December 1751 – 4 May 1799), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery.Dalrymple, p. 243 He i ...

—who used tigers as emblems, as opposed to the British emblematic use of lions. File:James Ward Lion and Tiger Fighting 1797.jpg, ''Lion and Tiger Fighting'' by James Ward, 1797 File:'A Lion and Tiger in Combat' by Johann Wenzel Peter.jpg, ''A Lion and Tiger in Combat'' by Johann Wenzel Peter, circa 1809 File:Seringapatam Medal obv.jpg, The Seringapatam medal shows a lion defeating a tiger File:The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger.jpg, ''The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger'', ''

Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pu ...

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of imag ...

from 1857 File:Die Gartenlaube (1858) b 689.jpg, german: Die Gartenlaube, lit=The Gazebo, 1858, page 689, from

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

in what is now

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

File:Jean-Léon Gérôme - The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer - Walters 37113.jpg, Painting by

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ra ...

on the

persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire The persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire occurred, sporadically and usually locally, throughout the Roman Empire, beginning in the 1st century CE and ending in the 4th century CE. Originally a polytheistic empire in the traditions of R ...

, from 1863. In the bottom left are two lions and a tiger. File:Emile-Joseph-Alexandre Gouget CombatEntreUnLionEtUntigre2 MuséePiscineRoubaix.jpg, Sculptures of a tiger and lion fighting, with the former dominating the latter, by Emile-Joseph-Alexandre Gouget (1870), in Le musée d'Art et d'Industrie de la ville de Roubaix File:Lion tamer (LOC pga.03749).jpg, 19th-century

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

of a tamer in a cage of lions and tigers, circa 1873

Literature

In the

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

epic ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the '' Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the K ...

'',

Narada Narada ( sa, नारद, ), or Narada Muni, is a sage divinity, famous in Hindu traditions as a travelling musician and storyteller, who carries news and enlightening wisdom. He is one of mind-created children of Brahma, the creator god. He ...

told Srinjaya that tigers were fiercer and more ruthless than lions.

Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...

literature depicted the lion, rather than the tiger, as the "king of the forest". The 15th-century book '' Anvâr-i Suhaylî'' ( fa, , "Lights of the

Canopus Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and the second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also designated α Carinae, which is Latinised to Alpha Carinae. With a visual apparent magnitude ...

") talks about the lion and the tiger competing for dominance on the banks of the

River, in the vicinity of

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...