Page 77 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13
P. 77

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.
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