VARIOUS INDICATIONS OF AGE. 295 



Palladius, who, like Yarro and Columella,. wrote much on agri- 

 culture, understood the marks and the shedding of the grinders 

 too. His date is uncertain, but he probably flourished about A. D. 

 400. He says : u Here are the signs by which the age of horses 

 is known : When two years and a half (old), they lose their up- 

 per middle teeth ; at four years their canines change ; before the 

 sixth year their upper molars fall off; in the course of the sixth 

 year those teeth that changed first fill up, and at the seventh year 

 they are all full. Past that age there are no longer any sure 

 signs of their age, unless this : that when they are advanced in 

 years their temples begin to cave in, their eyebrows become white 

 and their teeth usually protrude." Book IV, Cap. XIII. 



Vegetius Renatus, Publius, flourished probably about A. D. 400 

 or 500. As he quotes from the works of Apsyrtus (Absyrtus), it 

 is plain that he was either contemporary with or lived after Ap- 

 syrtus's time. It is clear that he understood that the first twelve 

 molars are shed, for lie says " the grinders disappear." His de- 

 scription of the auxiliary signs of age, so far as it goes and so far 

 as I know, has never been surpassed. He says: u The age of 

 beasts of burden can be known from their teeth, and buying we 

 should neither submit to the disadvantage of the ignorant, nor 

 curing the sick must we be ignorant of the age ; because, as with 

 men, so also with horses ; one thing is proper when they are 

 high-spirited, another when frigid with age. Moreover, it is man- 

 ifest that the marks of the body are changed with age ; for with 

 young animals two and a half years old, the middle upper teeth, 

 which they call milk teeth, fall out; but when they begin to 

 reach the fourth year, these falling off, others take their place, 

 which are called dog teeth. Then within the sixth year the 

 grinders disappear. In the sixth year those that are equal change 

 first. In the seventh year all are equally filled out ; and from 

 this time they begin to have the dog teeth. Age is not hereafter 

 known to a certainty unless by other signs which usage teaches. 

 In the tenth year the temples begin to whiten and the eyebrows 

 sometimes become gray. In the twelfth year a blackness in the 

 middle of the teeth appears. Frequently they scatter wrinkles on 

 the upper lips of domestic animals and those accustomed to the 

 bit, so that from the corner where the wrinkles begin, we go 

 even to the end of the lip, because the number of wrinkles shows 

 the number of 3 r ears. Finally, age is shown by the number of 

 wrinkles, the sadness of the countenance, the dejection of the 



