14 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



into their service, is a great inducement to review, in as 

 graphic a manner as possible, all that has been said in re- 

 lation to the existence, non-existence, or status of this art 

 among them. And in this inquiry the poet, painter, and 

 sculptor have some interest, inasmuch as the correctness 

 or incorrectness of their delineations, when this apparently 

 trifling detail comes to be treated, will depend. This 

 will be exemplified hereafter. 



It is a remarkable circumstance that, considering the 

 mighty influence the horse has been called on to exercise 

 on the destiny of nations and the progress of civilization 

 from the earliest times, — at one period an important ad- 

 junct to luxury, as well as a mainspring of utility ; at 

 another, an essential element in the arts of peace, and a 

 still more potent one in that of war, — the first written indi- 

 cation of horse-shoeing (as we now understand the term) 

 is only found in the annals of a comparatively recent 

 period. The knowledge of being able to defend from un- 

 due wear and injury such an important organ as the horse's 

 foot, and by such an efficacious, yet simple means, one 

 would think indispensable to those who, in primitive times, 

 so largely employed horses, and sought from them such im- 

 portant services. Such is not the case, however, if an en- 

 tire omission of the fact in their writings or on their monu- 

 ments be received as proof; and though several authors 

 of some weight have in recent years asserted that the an- 

 cients were acquainted with this art, and have adduced 

 evidence which appears to substantiate their opinion, yet 

 a careful examination of the times and the meaning of 

 the texts has, in nearly every case, tended to lead others 

 to the opposite conclusion. 



