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==Early Developments==
Perhaps the first evidence of hunting being associated with a type of royal power or a leader of some type comes from ancient Mesopotamia, particularly the city of Uruk. A stele was found that showed a type of leader displaying his power and engaged in hunting a lion from the late 4th millennium BC at around 3400 BCE.<ref>For more discussion on the early development of the royal hunt, see: Aruz, J., Exhibition Art of the First Cities: The Third Millenium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, & Metropolitan Museum of Art (Eds.). (2003). Art of the first cities: the third millennium B. C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus ; [published in conjunction with the Exhibition exhibition Art of the First Cities: the Third Millennium B. C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from May 8 to August 17, 2003] (2. print). New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, pg. 23.</ref> What is significant about this find is we know that hunting and taming lions was were a way to display royal power and the ability to control nature, an important symbolic representation in later periods. The fact we see such symbolic references to power in a period when cities were just developing show shows that the symbols of power were developing early as kingdoms first arose.
The royal hunt continued to be important and in later periods, by the 1st millennium BCE during the Assyrian Empire between the 9th-7th centuries BCE, hunting took on a new level of importance. Royal parks were now built that contained exotic plants and exotic game, including lions, for the king to hunt. Animals were released in arenas and, at least symbolically, kings were shown killing lions. Taming wild animals, particularly powerful animals such as lions, depicted or represented the kingdom being in good hands and a successful hunt can show the favor the gods had over the kingdom. In fact, the official royal seal of the Assyrian Empire showed the king stabbing a lion with his sword. In effect, the ultimate symbol of earthly power as it subdues the most powerful animal of the wild. Taming the wild forces that could threaten the kingdom and state were important symbols represented through the royal hunt.<ref> For more on the royal hunt in the Neo-Assyrian period, see: Ataç, M.-A. (2010). The mythology of kingship in Neo-Assyrian art. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, pg. 132.</ref>
Hunting in ancient Greece was an activity conducted commonly, as it was seen as a right of passage for men. After contacts with the ancient Near East world, the royal hunt became popular among Greek rulers in the Hellenistic Age.<ref>For more on hunting during the Hellenistic Age, see: Strootman, R. (2014). Courts and elites in the Hellenistic empires: the Near East after the Achaemenids, c. 330 to 30 BCE. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pg. 199.</ref> Hunting by royal households and emperors was also popular in the Roman world. Hadrian was known, for example, to hunt wild bears in Greece and other locations. The Roman emperors began to hunt a variety of wild game as they encountered new animals with their empire expanding.<ref>For more on Roman Emperors hunting, see: Canepa, M. P. (2009). The two eyes of the Earth: art and ritual of kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, pg. 159.</ref>
