Page 77 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13
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T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 7 7
Both types can also be found in North Africa today, as mentioned above. In unclear
terrain, Bracken and Sloughis work together. The Bracken are to bother the hares and
other game, the Sloughis are to pursue them and catch or hold them until the hunters
arrive.
Xenophon (430/425 to 354 BC) describes hunting with nets. From about 394 BC he lived
in Sparta, where he was engaged in hunting and writing his Histories. This is important
because the Galatians did not begin their expansions, including into the East, until the
late 4th century BC. When a Galatian or Gallic delegation arrived at Alexander the Great's
(356 to 323 BC), the famous quote was made that they were afraid of nothing except the
sky falling on their heads!
Xenophon speaks exclusively of hunting on foot. In fact, hunting on horseback originated
with the Persians and it was Alexander the Great who brought this form of hunting to the
eastern Mediterranean. Hunting on horseback among the Persians and Greeks after
Alexander the Great was a hunt for big game such as lions and other dangerous animals.
So when we see hunting on horseback in the North African mosaics, at least one Roman-
Greek tradition resonates, going back to Alexander the Great. But that does not mean
that there was not also a North African tradition of hunting on horseback. The Berbers
were excellent horsemen with the best and fastest horses in antiquity, as Arrian tells us.
These Berber horses were faster than the horses of the Persians!
Parts of the Celtic tribes migrated in different directions from their tribal areas in what is
now central France, Switzerland, Austria and southern Germany. Possibly the reason for
this migration was a climatic change, as we find in the later migrations of the tribes called
Germanic. These migrations went to Spain, Scotland and Ireland, Upper Italy and to
Greece and Asia Minor, which was dominated by Greek tribes at that time.
In the 3rd century BC, some tribes of the Celts of the La Tène culture migrated to what is
now Greece, and in 278/277 BC they crossed over to Asia Minor. There they were given
land in Cappadocia and around it, and these were the tribes of the Trokmer, the
Tolistobogians and the Tektosages. As mercenaries they supported, for example, the
Bithynian king Nicomedes. Arrrian was born in Bithynia, so he certainly knew the peoples
of the Galatians, who brought the Vertragus with them to Asia Minor. Ankara, for
example, is a new foundation of the Galatians, which was called Ankyra in antiquity. The
Tolistobogians settled on the border of Bithynia and Phrygia.