in Roman antiquity, a kind of show which the Roman emperors frequently exhibited to the people. The word is formed from the Greek πάσας, all, and στερεός, fruit; and hence the name was also given by the Athenians to a sacrifice, in which all kinds of fruits were offered. In this spectacle, the circus being all set over with large trees, represented a forest, into which the beasts being admitted from the dens under ground, the people, at a sign given by the emperor, pursued, shot, and killed all they could lay hold of, which they afterwards carried away to regale upon at home. The beasts usually given on these occasions were boars, deer, oxen, and sheep.

Casaubon, Cujas, Pitthou, and others, represent the pancarpus and sylva as the same thing; but Salmasius thinks they were different. The sylva, according to him, was such a diversion as that above described; but the pancarpus was a combat in which robust people, hired for that purpose, fought with wild beasts. This opinion Casaubon confirms from Cassian, Justinian, Claudian, Firmicus, Manilius, and Cassiodorus.