Page 76 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 7 6

CHAPTER 6 - HUNTING WITH SIGHTHOUNDS AMONG THE
GREEKS AND THE ROMANS

We have already dealt in detail with the mosaics in North Africa (Sloughi Review No. 9). As
a rule, we have presented scenes that depicted hunting in the open with fast sighthounds
on fast game. Nevertheless, there are also scenes there that document hunting with nets.

Hunting hares with nets, with hounds and falcons, Bardo Museum 2015 © Th. Liedtke

So apparently in North Africa in Roman times both forms of hunting existed side by side,
hunting with nets and hunting in the open. This may have different causes. The followers
of the traditional form of hunting will have used the nets if they were rather close to the

Greek or Italic culture, i.e. possibly immigrated and hunted with Brack* types. We have
such evidence, for example, in the parents of Septimius Severus, whose father's family
had long been resident in North Africa and came from a Punic family. But his mother was
an immigrant from an Italic family from Tusculum. This place takes its name from its
original founders, the Etruscans. In Etruscan tombs, too, there are depictions of hunting
with nets.

It is also possible that there were corresponding dog types for both types of hunting. The
Sloughi type for hunting in the open country, the Brack type for hunting with nets. We
have already learned about the tradition of hunting with nets from Xenophon (Sloughi
Review No. 9). The Celts also used two types of hounds, the Segusier, a Brack type, and
the Vertragus, a swift-footed dog that was apparently capable of catching a hare in its

run.

*Editor’s note: a Brack is a Pointer type dog.