Tiger versus lion

Historically, the comparative merits of the tiger versus the lion have been a popular topic of discussion by hunters, naturalists, artists, and poets, and continue to inspire the popular imagination in the present day. In the past, lions and tigers reportedly competed in the wilderness, where their ranges overlapped in Eurasia. The most common reported circumstance of their meeting is in captivity, either deliberately or accidentally.

In the circuses of Ancient Rome, exotic beasts, including Barbary lions and tigers, were commonly pitted against each other. The contest of the lion against the tiger was a classic pairing, amongst others. A mosaic in the House of the Faun in Pompeii shows a fight between a lion and a tiger. There are different accounts of which of these animals beat or killed the other, throughout time. Although lions and tigers can be kept together in harmony in captivity, conflicts between the two species in captivity, ending up in fatalities, have also been recorded.

Roman Emperor Titus had Bengal tigers compelled to fight African lions, and the tigers always beat the lions.

A tiger called 'Gunga', which belonged to the King of Oude, killed thirty lions, and destroyed another after being transferred to the zoological garden in London.

Clark (1838) said that a British officer, who resided many years at Sierra Leone, saw many fights between lions and tigers, and that the tiger 'universally' won. As a West African nation, Sierra Leone would have had lions (Panthera leo senegalensis or Panthera leo leo), not tigers.

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Wikipedia