MULES. 1 7 T 



as a certain fact, that bv a cross of the remotest ol 

 different races of the ass, the most beautiful produc- 

 tions are obtained. 



Mules were in use and highly esteemed at a remote 

 period of antiquity ; and are mentioned in scripture 

 as of importance in the equipage of princes. Hero- 

 dotus, who is styled the father of profane history, fre- 

 quently speaks of them ; and it is known that they 

 were introduced in the chariot races at tlie Olympic 

 games in the seventieth Olympiad, about five hun- 

 dred years before Christ. The Romans well knew 

 their value. Pliny informs us, from Yarro, that Q. 

 Axius, a Roman senator, paid four hundred thousand 

 sersterces, upwards of thirteen thousand dollars, for a 

 male ass, for the propagation of mules. And he says 

 further, that the profit of a female ass in breeding 

 stock for the same purpose, was estimated in Celte- 

 beria, now the kingdom of Valencia in Spain, at a 

 like sum. We may infer from a passage in Tacitus, 

 and in Plutarch's life of Marius, that mules were ge- 

 nerally employed to transport the ba>ggage of the Ro- 

 man armies ; and that it is not improbable the superior 

 officers rode those of a high grade, having their horses 

 led except when they engaged an enemy. It seems 

 that the dilletanti of Rome held them in great estima- 

 tion, as we are informed that the mules of Nero and 

 Poppea were shod with gold and silver — not plates, as 

 iron shoes are now formed, but the whole hoof en- 

 closed. 



Columella, who in tlie reign of the Emperer Clauams, 

 oublished the most valuable treatise on the husbandry' 

 •ind economv of the Romans that nas been handed 

 crown to us, has given v^^ry particular directions for 

 oreeding asses and mules. He was a native of Cadiz. 

 16 



