© The Trustees of the British Museum
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Ancient & Medieval

Boar Hunt

Published October 17, 2024 | 4 min read

By Michael A. Kodysz

The wild boar is among the most fearsome of animals. Boars are an aggressive type of swine native to Eurasia and North Africa. Long curved tusks protrude from both sides of their mouths, and their powerful jaws can break a man’s arm in two. An adult male boar can reach a shoulder height of 4 feet and weigh up to 300 pounds. An agitated wild boar can charge up to 11 miles per hour.

Defending themselves and their young against human hunters or other animals, wild boars will mount a deadly counterattack. First, they charge their enemies, goring their legs and tripping them so that they fall to the ground. Boars will then continue to attack, using their razor-sharp tusks to disembowel the immobilized victims. It is not for nothing that one of the Twelve Labors of the heroic Greek demigod Hercules was to capture the gigantic Erymanthian boar.

Figure 1: The obverse features a laureate bust of Caracalla facing to the right, draped and cuirassed. This type is unique in that it depicts Caracalla’s bust rather than just his head. (Photo: Michael A. Kodysz)

Roman mosaics often depict wild boars, and the animals appear on several Republican and Imperial coin types. Here, however, the focus is on two specific boar-themed coin types minted during the Severan era (A.D. 193-235) by two provincial cities under Roman imperial rule: Ephesus in Ionia on the western coast of present-day Turkey and Nicopolis ad Istrum in Moesia Inferior, the ruins of which are in present-day Bulgaria.

Four small coins of Ephesus (Figures 1-2, 4-5) and one larger coin of Nicopolis (Figure 3), all made from bronze, are shown here. On the obverse of each is a portrait of the Roman emperor whose reign coincided with the time of their production. All four Ephesian coins carry the same reverse type: a boar charges to the right, pierced clean through by a spear. Each has been struck from a different die, so they vary in the details.

Figure 2: The obverse shows a bare-headed bust of Geta facing to the right, draped and cuirassed. Fewer than 10 of these coins are known. (Photo: Michael A. Kodysz)

The coin from Nicopolis, issued under Septimius Severus (A.D. 193-211), also shows a boar running to the right. Yet this composition features a huntsman on horseback overtaking the boar. With his arm raised, he holds a spear ready to thrust into the boar’s back.

The animal depicted on the Ephesian coins, usually identified as the Calydonian Boar, is from a famous story of Greek legend. In it, the goddess Artemis became angry because Oeneus, king of Aetolia, had neglected to offer her a sacrifice. She thus sent the boar to destroy crops in the Aetolian region of Calydon. Among a group of heroic hunters who eventually killed it was Meleager, son of Oeneus, and the huntress Atalanta, who struck the boar first with her arrow (Figure 6).

Figure 3: This coin shows a laureate head of Severus facing to the right. The reverse shows Caracalla on horseback galloping to the right, about to stab a wild boar with a spear. (Photo: Michael A. Kodysz)

Boars appear more frequently on the coins of Ephesus than in other provincial cities. Does this mean that the Ephesians had a particular affinity for the story of the Calydonian boar? The answer is probably no. More likely is that the boar-themed coins of Ephesus evoke a scene from the city’s foundation story.

In it, colonists led by Prince Androklos of Athens departed for Ionia. An oracle had foretold that a fish would show them and a boar would lead them to the place where they should establish a city. Upon landing on the Ionian coast, the colonists caught some fish and began to cook them. One of the fish leaped from the pan, flinging burning coals and setting aflame the underbrush, out from which ran a boar. Androklos killed it, and where it fell, the colonists built Ephesus.

Figure 4: The obverse features a laureate head of Geta facing right. The boar on the reverse has been stabbed with a spear. (Photo: Michael A. Kodysz)

In ancient mythology, the inherent danger and necessity of hunting transformed the hunter into a hero. Hunting was deemed a worthy pursuit for a variety of deities and demigods. It therefore became a popular pastime for the nobles and royalty who sought to emulate them.

Figure 5: This coin shows a laureate trapped bust of Macrinus facing right. A crudely rendered boar appears on the reverse. (Photo: Michael A. Kodysz)

Numismatic references identify the huntsman on the coin of Nicopolis not as Septimius Severus but as his eldest son and co-emperor, Caracalla. This identification is likely correct, as the figure wears a laurel crown but lacks the long, forked beard Severus had throughout his reign.The scene on this coin probably does recall the Calydonian boar hunt, casting Caracalla as a mythical hero. For the populace, depictions of boar hunts (and other animal hunts) served as potent reminders of the power of the emperor and the Roman state and their civilizing influence over untamed nature.