the homeland of the mules. A connection of Mysians with mules is also present already in Homer's Iliad. Further relevant Paleo-Balkan evidence can be seen in Iuppiter Menzanas, mentioned in a passage written by Festus in relation to a Messapian horse sacrifice, and in ΜΕΖΗΝΑ̣Ι from a Thracian inscription on the Duvanli gold ring also bearing the image of a horseman. Both these attestations might indicate that *me(n)zana- means 'horseman' and consequently that the root *me(n)za- means 'horse'. The term has been further compared with Albanian mëz or mâz 'foal', which also finds a correlation with Romanian mînz. The province of Moesia was named after the Moesi. Ancient literature In the late 1st century BCE, in Rome a new ideological discourse was formed. Propagated by poets like Horace and Ovid, it constructed a glorious Trojan past for the Romans, who were claimed to be descendants of Trojan Dardanians. In the years before the Trojan origin story became the official Roman narrative about their origins, the Romans came into conflict in the Balkans with a people who were known as the Dardani. In public discourse this created the problem that the Roman army could be seen as fighting against a people who could be related to the ancestors of the Romans. The image of the historical Dardani in the 1st century BC was that of Illyrian barbarians who raided their Macedonian frontier and had to be dealt with. In this context, the name of a people known as the Moesi appeared in Roman sources. The Moesi are mentioned only in three ancient sources in the period after the death of Emperor Augustus in 14 CE. The name itself was taken from the name of the Mysians in Asia Minor. The choice seems to be related to the fact that the Trojan-era Mysians lived close to the Trojan-era Dardanians. Ovid mentions the Moesi as a people who raided the inner Balkan provinces of Romans. Strabo is the first who linked the Balkan Moesi considering them to be of the same origin as the Homeric Mysi of northwest Anatolia. Strabo constructs a story according to which Moesian presence in the Danubian area dates to the campaigns of Aelius Catus, who moved 50.000 Moesians from coastal Thrace near the Getae around 4 CE. Strabo's argumentation that the Moesi were moved in the region by Aelius Catus has been criticized for its "illogical and controversial