502 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EQUITATION [CH. 



development of horse-armour in the fifteenth century rendered 

 it necessary to elongate to an extraordinary degree the heel 

 of the spur (Fig. 142, no. 2), in order that the rider might be 

 able to reach the unprotected lower part of the horse's body. 

 But with the disappearance of horse-armour the heel soon 

 shrank to the proportions which it has practically retained 

 ever since. 



The Horse-shoe. It was maintained in the sixteenth 

 century by the famous Gesner that horse-shoes fixed on with 

 iron nails were not employed down to the time of Vegetius 

 {circa a.d. 380). There is indeed clear evidence that the Romans 

 in the first century B.C. did place some kind of shoes on oxen and 

 mules, for Columella speaks of hempen shoes (soleae sparteae) 

 being used for oxen, while Catullus alludes to a mule losing 

 its shoe (solea) in the mud. But it is almost certain that the 

 shoe was a slipper made of hemp or leather tied on the 

 animal's foot, just like the boots placed on horses employed 

 to draw mowing machines on large lawns. In the first century 

 after Christ Nero, who travelled with a train of one thousand 

 carts, had his mules shod with silver soleae, whilst his wife, 

 Poppaea, outdid him by having her mules fitted with shoes 

 of gold. It is probable that the silver and golden shoes were 

 simply leather slippers such as those just referred to, the upper 

 portions of which were covered with plates of precious metal, 

 but it is possible that soleae made altogether of metal may 

 have been used, and that the golden and silver shoes just 

 mentioned may have been all of metal, something like those 

 shown in Fig. 143, nos. 5 and 6. Such a type ought certainly 

 to be the first step in advancing to metal from the hempen or 

 leathern slipper. But as such a metal shoe would not give 

 a secure foothold for the animal, the next step would be to 

 cut a portion out of the middle of the sole, thus both saving 

 metal and giving the horse a surer footing. Once such a step 

 was made, less and less metal would be placed under the 

 horse's foot, until finally the shoe was nothing more than a rim 

 of metal which was not carried round the heel. The attach- 

 ment to the foot would then be made by nails driven through 

 the outer part of the hoof. The later steps in this supposed 

 evolution, as I have given it, are of course only hypothetical. 



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