was equipped with a sufficient number of light and heavy vehicles, of draught horses and oxen, of pack-horses, sumpter mules, and asses for the exigences of local transit.[1] Stringent rules were laid down for the equitable loading of both animals and carriages, and also for the humane treatment of the former. Thus a span of four oxen was allowed to draw a load of fifteen hundred pounds, but the burden of an ordinary pack-horse was limited to thirty.[2] It was forbidden to beat the animals with heavy or knotted sticks; they were to be urged onwards by the use only of a sharp whip or rod fit to "admonish their lagging limbs with a harmless sting."[3] In addition to the mansions there were usually four or five intermediate stations called mutations, where a few relays were kept for the benefit of those speeding on an urgent mission.[4] The abuse of the public posts was jealously guarded against, and only those bearing an order from the Emperor or one of the Praetorian Praefects could command their
- [Footnote: court and chambers on two floors (see Texier and Pullan, op. cit.,
p. 142, for a description and plans of one attributed to the times of the Empire), is supposed to represent not only these mansions, but even the pattern of the original Persian angari of the classic period. Travellers could stop at them gratuitously and obtain provender, etc. Cicero, Atticus, v, 16, etc.]
- ↑ About forty animals were kept at each station; Procopius, Anecd., 30.
- ↑ Cod. Theod., VIII, v, 28, etc. 22-1/2 lb. avd. seems absurdly little for a horse to carry; a parhippus, an extra-strong horse, was kept, and might take 100 lb. (75 avd.), but even that is only half the weight of an average man; Cassiodorous, Var. Epist., iv, 47; v, 5. C. remarks, however, that it is absurd to load an animal who has to travel at a high speed. I think, therefore, that the load is in addition to a rider (hippocomus).
- ↑ Cod. Theod., VIII, v, 2.
- ↑ The Jerusalem Itinerary (c. 350) shows the mansions and mutations from Bordeaux to J., etc. The former seem to have been in or near large towns, the latter by the wayside.
