Excavations continue at Berenice, that Nullarbor of Egypt. These days the Aussies are struggling to supply what they hope will become a spaceport. In Roman days, the struggle was to supply a stopover and naval-station halfway down the Red Sea. They'd tried taking the moister Arabian side; it didn't work.
Anyway: the local troops got bored and wanted company. Some of them figured a barrel of monkeys would be fun. Or piglets; omnivores, basically, who might live on scraps.
These monkeys were Indian, it seems: rhesus and bonnet. Barbary monkeys indigenous to Africa also existed but they weren't here (those could be found at Pompeii though!).
Although the monkeys were well loved - they had human-tier burials, and given kittens and piglets as playmates - they didn't eat well. India simply offers more resources than the freakin' eastern Sahara.
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