Nouveaux pastels

The evolution of the modern horse-shoe from the primitive foot-gear for draught animals used in ancient times furnishes an interesting subject for investigation. Xenophon and other historians recommended various processes for hardening and strengthening the hoofs of horses and mules,[1] and from this negative evidence some writers have inferred that the ancients were ignorant of farriery. It seems indeed certain that the practice of protecting the feet of horses was not universal among the Greeks and Romans. Fabretti, an Italian antiquary, examined with care the representations of horses on many ancient columns and marbles, and found but one instance in which the horse appeared[2] to be shod;[2] and in most specimens of ancient art the iron horse-shoe is conspicuous by its absence. But in the mosaic portraying the battle of Issus, which was unearthed at Pompeii in 1831, and which is now in the Naples Museum, is the figure of a horse whose feet appear to be shod with iron shoes similar to those in modern use;[3] and in an ancient Finnish incantation against the plague, quoted in Lenormant’s “Chaldean Magic and Sorcery,” occur these lines:— O Scourge depart; Plague, take thy flight … I will give thee a horse with which to escape, whose shoes shall not slide on ice, nor whose feet slip on the rocks. No allusion to the horse-shoe is made by early writers on veterinary topics. But, on the other hand, there is abundant testimony that the ancients did sometimes protect the feet of their beasts of burden. Winckelmann, the Prussian art historian, describes an antique engraved stone representing a man holding up a horse’s foot, while an assistant, kneeling, fastens on a shoe.[4] In the works of the Roman poet Catullus occurs the simile of the iron shoe of a mule sticking in the mire.[5] Contemporary historians relate that the Emperor Nero caused his mules to be shod with silver,[6] while golden[3] shoes adorned the feet of the mules belonging to the notorious Empress Poppæa.