REVOLTING RATIONS
Blood Horses
The Mongol Empire, which under Genghis Khan gobbled up vast swaths of Eurasia in the 13th century, boasted armies of highly mobile warriors whose horses provided them with both transport and, in a pinch, sustenance: Cavalrymen not only relied on sips of mare’s milk when wild game and other forage was in short supply but sometimes gingerly sliced a vein in their horse’s neck and swallowed a few mouthfuls of its blood. Marco Polo reported that by nourishing themselves in this way, Mongol horsemen could “ride quite ten days’ marches without eating any cooked food and without lighting a fire.”
Black Death
The city-state of Sparta in ancient Greece was renowned for its military might; its powerful and well-trained army of professional soldiers was able to utterly vanquish rival Athens in the second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). Spartan boys began preparing for war with
