When I read Claudius they had a feast for Caligula and brought some frozen strange animal from the ice and had it for dinner. Sounded very much like they were eating a mammoth.
In Pompeii everything was on the menu;) Frankly, I’m surprised there was no hue and cry it was God who destroyed the city with Vesuvius.
There’s an FR topic about that, of course. ;’)
It occurs to me that the giraffe may have been used in a Roman circus that pitted exotic animals against other exotic animals, and afterward was eaten, just as bulls killed in the bullring are eaten today.