"I propose to tell about asses as well I may, because I am from Reate where the best and the largest are found; indeed, I have sold to the Arcadians themselves asses of this race and of my own breeding. He who wishes to establish a good herd of asses should see in the first place that he procures jacks and jennies of prime age so that they may breed as long as possible, strong, well made in all parts, of full body and of a good breed, that is to say derived from those localities whence the best specimens come; thus the Peloponnesians, so far as possible, buy asses bred in Arcadia and we in Italy those from the valley of Reate. For if the best of those delicious fish we call muraenae flutae are taken on the coast of Sicily and the best sturgeons at Rhodes, it does not follow that they are of equal delicacy in all seas.
"There are two kinds of asses, one wild, which is called the onager, of which there, are many herds in Phrygia and Lycaonia; the other domestic, as they are all over Italy. The onager is fit for use for breeding because he is easily tamed and once domesticated never reverts to a wild life.[138]
"Because their young take after their parents, it is important to choose both jack and jenny of good conformation. The conditions of buying and selling asses are much the same as for other kinds of cattle and include stipulations as to their health and against tort. They are best fed on corn and barley bran. The jennies are bred before the solstice so that they may have their foals at the same season in the following year, for their period of gestation is twelve months. The jennies should be relieved from work while in foal for fatigue at that time injures the offspring: but the jacks, on the contrary, are worked all the time, because it is lack of exercise which is bad for them.
"In the matter of rearing, practically the same rules apply to asses as to horses. The foals are not separated from their dams for the first year after they are born: during the second year they are permitted to stay with their dams at night, but they should then be tied with a loose halter or some other such restraint. In the third year you begin to break them for whatever service they are intended.
"As to the number: they are not usually kept in herds unless it may be for transport service; generally they are used to turn the mill, or for carrying about the farm, or even for the plough where the soil is light, as in Campania. Herds of asses are some times employed by merchants, like those who transport wine, or oil, or corn, or any other commodity, from Brundisium or Apulia to the sea, by pack trains."
Of horses
VII. Here Lucienus took up the discourse. "It is my turn," he said, "to open the barrier and drive in my horses: and they are not only stallions, of which, like Atticus, I keep one for every ten breeding mares, but mares as well, such as Q. Modius Equiculus, that gallant soldier, was wont to esteem for use even in war nearly as much as stallions.[139]
"He who wishes to have such studs of stallions and mares as may be seen in Peloponnesus and in Apulia should first consider age and see that he obtains them not less than three nor more than ten years old. The age of a horse, as also of nearly all animals whose hoofs are not cloven, even horned animals, may be known from the condition of the teeth: thus at thirty months of age a colt is said to lose the milk incisors from the middle of his mouth, two above and two below. At the beginning of the fourth year, in like manner he sheds the same number, being the incisors adjoining those previously lost, and at that age also the teeth called canine begin to appear. At the beginning of the fifth year he loses two more incisors, and at that time the new teeth show hollow. In the sixth year the new teeth begin to fill out their cavities, and by the seventh usually all have been renewed and the permanent mouth is made. What is the age of a horse beyond this point it is not possible to determine accurately, except that when the teeth project and the eye brows are white and have hollows under them, it is considered that a horse is sixteen years old.
"A breeding mare should be of medium size, for it is not fitting that they should be either very large or very small, but the quarters and belly should be broad.
"A breeding stallion on the other hand should be chosen with a large body, well made and all his parts in harmony. What sort of horse it will turn out to be can be determined from the points of the foal, for it should exhibit a small head: limbs well knit together: a black eye, wide nostrils: ears well pricked: a mane which is thick, dark and curly, of fine hairs and falling on the right side of the neck: a breast broad and well developed: strong shoulders: a moderate belly: the loins flat and rising to the quarters: long shoulder blades: a back bone well doubled [with ridges of meat] but if these are not prominent in no event should the bone itself stand out: a tail large and curly: legs straight and even and rather long: knees round and small and not turned in as you look at them: hard hoofs: veins visible all over the body (for a horse of this kind is fit for treatment when he is sick).