Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 8, 30.28): The porcupine is a native of India and Africa. It is covered with a prickly skin of the hedgehog's kind, but the spines of the porcupine are longer and they dart out when it draws the skin tight: it pierces the mouths of hounds when they close with it, and shoots out at them when further off. In the winter months it hibernates, as is the nature of many animals and before all of bears. - [Rackham translation]

Gaius Julius Solinus [3rd century CE] (De mirabilibus mundi / Polyhistor, Chapter 30.28): The porcupine is also very common in this place; it is similar to the hedgehog. Its back is bristly with spines, which it frequently shoots out with a voluntary heave, so it might wound attacking dogs with unremitting showers of barbs. - [Apps translation]

Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 2:35): The porcupine [histrix] is an African animal similar to the hedgehog, named for the ‘clattering’ [stridor] of its quills, which it spreads out and shoots from its back, so as to wound any ddogs that chase it. - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]

Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Quadrupeds 4.52): The porcupine, as Solinus says, is a beast commonly called among us porcus spinosus [spiny pig]. This animal lives near the sea; but never in the caves of the mountains, unless, of course, he has no refuge near the sea. As Pliny says, it is active in the winter months, but is hidden in the summer. It is powerful on land and in water. On the backs of this beast are arrows which are generally loosed and deliberately shot to injure dogs or men approaching. For his wrath, as Jacobus says, is swift to seek revenge. By these are signified the heretics who are active in the persecution of the church; when indeed the church has peace, they hide themselves in secret. They lie in wait to snatch away the poor man who lacks the gold of faith. But the Jews are heretics with sharp arguments, by which they kill those who approach them. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]