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Roman officials (aediles) in charge of giving spectacles relied on their contacts in the provinces to help them get animals. In the following letter, M. Caelius Rufus, a protégé of Cicero, who had been elected to the office of aedile, complains to his mentor that he has not sent him more more panthers from Cilicia (modern southwest Turkey), where Cicero was provincial governor (Patiscus was a Roman businessman working in Cilicia) (ad Fam. 8.9.3):
Cicero responds somewhat humorously (ad Fam. 2.11.2):
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Exotic and fierce wild animals
had to be imported to Rome from North Africa or the Near East. The usual method
was to have bush beaters and men on horseback chase lions, panthers, leopards,
and other large animals into an area surrounded by shields and nets, such as is
depicted in this mosaic from North Africa. Note that pens, full of animals
normally preyed on by large cats, are placed behind the trap as bait. Once the
animals were cornered they were backed into crates by beaters using torches and
protected by shields. A leopard seems to be running into one of these crates,
but not all these trapped animals were that cooperative. Below we see a beater
for whom a shield was not sufficient protection. 
