![]() ![]() When General Marius was called upon to defend Rome against the invading barbarians, he trained his soldiers to undertake amazing physical feats. Roman soldiers were known to carry great quantities of equipment, armor, and rations over great distances on foot. In ancient Rome, mules were used for transport and their amazing strength and endurance was known to all.Such races were run throughout a period of more than 80 years. Later on, mules were raised in Peloponnesus and Arcadia, and harness races for mules began in Olympia in 500 BC. Mules were also bred in Greece in Homer’s time to be used as draft animals and in farming. He reported in the Iliad, the arrival of mules from Henetia in Asia Minor, where breeding them was a local specialty. The mule was well known to Homer in 800 BC Greece.Also, the mule was easier to train than the horse, and could cover a 50-mile area in a day and need only four or five hours of sleep. Mules had much harder hooves than horses and were better suited to cover the rocky terrain found in Greece. While boats were used when traveling long distances in ancient Greece, as the country was partially a group of islands, the average citizen rarely left their home area and depended upon the mule as the most common mode of transportation. The mule was highly valued in ancient Greece as well, for use as pack animals and to draw carriages.People of ancient Ethiopia gave the mule the highest status of all the animals. ![]() In the kingdom of Mari in northern Mesopotamia, the story was told that the King was reprimanded and asked to "Please …use a mule instead of the common horse", as his royal position demanded.At Ebla, the average price for a mule was 60 shekels. Sumerian texts from the third millennium BC stated the price of a mule was 20 to 30 shekels, seven times that of a donkey.To the north in Asia Minor, the Hittites were the most powerful of the early horse-people - but they considered the mule to be at least three times more valuable in price than even a good chariot horse.Mule remains are frequent in the archaeological record, suggesting that mules had become a "mainstream" animal early on, used primarily for pulling wagons or transporting burden. An Egyptian monument from Thebes depicts mules yoked to a chariot. Also in ancient Egypt, while the Pharaohs were carried about in fancy litters by servants, the common people often had the use of mule drawn carts. Mules were, at that time, the preferred pack animal. The miners marked their route with carvings on rocks showing boats and mules (not camels!). Mules were known in Egypt since before 3000 BC and for some 600 years - between 2100 BC and 1500 BC - the Pharaohs sent expeditions into the Sinai to mine turquoise.The inhabitants of Paphlagonia and Nicaea (the northern and northwestern parts of modern day Turkey) are said to have been the first to breed mules. ![]()
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