Being eaten by animals is common in every culture and civilization where, of course, you have meat eating animals. But none of
these cvilizations are known like the Romans are for there extravagant methods of putting people to death by the things they
would usually hunt. In paticular, the christian martyrs who were commonly "fed to the lions". But like most things, it wasn't as
easy at it sounds. Seeing the conditions of these animals and unbearable cruelty shown to them they were almost always
reluctant to attack. So they had to entice the animal a bit, like smearing blood all over the person and tieing them down to a
stake so they can't move, or starving them days before a game. Nero, the man who laughed while Rome burned (presumably by
his hand) was the man who put the method of killing christians to death by animals, and most time it wasn't even christians.
It's not suprising during the reign of the Romans that a few speacies were put close to extinction, some totally wiped out. The
opening of the Colosseum in Rome, which lasted about 100 days, 9000 animals were killed...