"We search the glades, the green tracts, the open plains, swiftly coursing here and there o'er all the fields, eager to catch varied quarries with docile hound. We enjoy transfixing the nervous hare, the unresisting doe, the daring wolf or capturing the crafty fox; our heart's desire is to rove along the river-side shades, hunting the ichneumon [mongoose] on the quiet banks among the crops of bulrushes."
Nemesianus, Cynegetica (48ff)
In this detail, baying hounds chase hares in an olive grove, as one cowers in the briars. The mosaic is from Roman Thysdrus (El Djem) and now is in the Bardo Museum (Tunis).
References: Minor Latin Poets (1935) translated by J. W. Duff and A. M. Duff (Loeb Classical Library). The illustration is from Mosaïques de Tunisie (1976) by Georges Fradier and André Martin.
