- Chapter Seven -
87 Hunting the wild boar proved fatal to both Adonis and Meleager in classical mythology
(Rose 1965: 124-5 and 258 respectively). In the story of Culhwch and Olwen, Ysbaddaden
the giant, Olwen's father, sets Culhwch the task of hunting down Twrch Trwyth to take the
comb, razor and shears between his ears. All of which was accomplished with the slaying of
the boar, but not without loss of the lives of men and animals. Note the model of a horse-
man with spear chasing a boar on a four-wheeled cart from Merida, Spain - Megaw 1970:
58--9, pI. 37, dated second to first century BC; and the triumphant votive inscription set up
at Bollihope Common, Stanhope, Co. Durham to commemorate the capture of a 'wild boar
of remarkable fineness' by G. Tetius Veturius Micianus, prefect of the Sobosian cavalry
(Collingwood and Wright 1965: I, no. 1041 p. 346) dated to c. the third century AD; and the
boar's tusk amulet now damaged, from Segontium-Boon 1975: 62-4, fig. 6.
88 Shell middens are not uncommon on coastal sites in Britain and its offshore islands, in the
Orkneys, Hebrides, etc.; Y nys Seiriol, off the south-east coast of Anglesey (Hughes
1901); Hilbre Island off the western coast of the Wirral peninsula, Cheshire; Twlc Point,
Llangennith, West Glamorgan, with potsherds in the midden dated second to fourth
century AD (Penniman 1936).
89 Celtic mercenaries were recruited from Cisalpine Gaul by Dionysos, Tyrant of Syracuse,
C.369-368 BC, and included cavalry, Xenophon, Hellenica VII.I.20-22 and VII. I. 3 I; Caesar
VI.I5; also Strabo's comment on the Celtic fondness for fighting (Iv+6).
90 Stead 1979 for fittings from the two-wheeled carts found in the East Riding, Yorkshire,
graves; also Dent 1985 ; Joffroy 1962: III-20, fig. on p. 40 for plan of tomb with remains
of the four-wheeled cart.
91 Davies and Spratling 1976. Note especially p. 129 fig. 6 no. 16; p. 131 figs 7, 8 no. 17; fig.
8, no. 18; fig. 8 no. 19; fig. 7, no. 20.
92 Strabo IV.5.2; Tacitus, Agricola 12; Cassius Dio XXXIX. 51. In the Tain B6 Cualnge, L6eg
is charioteer to the great hero Cli Chulainn. see Fox 1945 for the chariot fittings and horse
furniture from Llyn Cerrig Bach, Anglesey, pp. 12-19 nos. 19-43 pI. Ill, VI, VII; and pp.
19-30 nos. 44-58 pI. IV, IX-XIV respectively. Tacitus, Historiae III.45.
93 Dio Cassius LXXVl.I2.1-5; Diodorus Siculus v.30.2.
94 Strabo IV+5·
95 Lepper and Frere 1988: 70-1, pI. XVIII cast 58; 15-16 for date of completion and dedica-
tion of the column.
96 Strabo IV.5.2; Tacitus, Historiae IlI+5.
97 Caesar VI. 13·
98 Toynbee 1964: 401, 403-4, pI. XCI.C; note also the story ofWeland Smith (Davidson 1986:
131); also Webster and Backhouse 1991: 101-3: Franks Casket no. 70 (with three plates).
The left half of the front panel shows a scene from the story of Weland Smith, casket dated
to the second half of the eighth century.
99 Pliny the Elder discusses metallurgy in Book XXXIV of the Naturalis Historia;
Theophilus, c. 1100, described casting and metalworking, but the works of Agricola from
1530, and Vannoccio Biringuccio's Pirotechnia of 1540, were amongst the first modern
treatises to discuss the processes involved clearly and without mystification.
100 Birley 1979: 19, 147·
101 Gaming-pieces, Stead 1967: 14-17, 18-19, fig. 10, on left, frontispiece pI. la, c, d; board
pp. 31-6, figs 19,20,21 and fig. on p. 59. Note also the story of 'The Dream of Macsen
Wledig' in the Mabinogion, where the emperor sees two young men playing gwyddbwyll
on a silver gaming-board.
102 Collingwood and Wright 1965: I, 5-6, no. 12 and fig.
103 Ausonius, Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium IV.7-14; Henig 1984: 66-7;
Rankin 1987: 233.