14 Sjef van Tilborg number of reliefs it is clear that it is usually not a fight between human beings but a combat between a beast (lion, panther, bear, wild boar) and a human being, in this case the condemned (usually men but sometimes also a woman). There is a sort of transition between the last part of the venationes and what the midday intermission has to offer. In the Zliten mosaic from Libya that is part of the world heritage (41), all other sorts of fights are depicted beside the pairs of fighting gladiators: a naked man who is pushed forward on a cart towards a leopard which attacks him; a man who hunts deer; a man who is threatened by a bear; a man with a deer that is itself attacked by a wolf (?); a horse that lies wounded on the ground; a fight between a bear and a bull spurred on by a man with a long stick; a naked woman who is beaten with a whip towards a lion … There are also a few reliefs that have been preserved from the area covered by the Apocalypse: – from Smyrna a relief on which three strips stand one above the other: on the topmost and the middle two condemned are depicted with a rope around the neck; except for a pubic apron they are naked; they are ushered into the arena by a man wearing a tunic; on the undermost frame animals are depicted: a lion; and an ibex which is attacked by a wild boar (42). – from Ephesus a relief on which a naked and a manacled woman is attacked by a wild animal; the man at the left is the bestiarius; on the background the contours of the arena are depicted (43). Because it is about the condemned, the intention is to aggravate dying itself: mors turpissima. In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius one can see how gruesome fantasy and reality are interchanged. A number of men want to take revenge on a girl who has cheated them: One advised that the girl be burned alive; a second exhorted that she be thrown to the beasts; a third advocated that she be nailed to a cross; a fourth recommended that she be torn to pieces on the rack…A fifth (41) G. VILLE, a great expert of the North African archeology dates the mosaic by the clothes of the gladiators as end of the first century /beginning of the second century, see “Essai de datation de la mosaïque des gladiateurs de Zliten”, La Mosaïque Gréco-Romaine (ed. M.G. PICARD – M.H. STERN) (Paris 1965) 147- 155. (42) For a depiction, see S. REINACH, Répertoire de Reliefs Grecs et Romains (Paris 1912) II, 526, n. 2; for the description ROBERT, 235. (43) For a depiction, see J. KEIL, Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes 11 (1908) 148, Beiblatt, fig, 100; for the description ROBERT, 222.