i6 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



And this striking picture has been thus translated by a 

 recent and celebrated scholar : 



' Foot on foot, and horse on horse : 

 While from the plain thick clouds of dust arose 

 Beneath the armed hoofs of clatt'ring steeds.' 



This it will be readily perceived is an error. The 

 passage, literally rendered, ought to read something like 

 the following : ' Foot on foot and horse on horse, they 

 perished forcibly while flying ; and under them the dust 

 arose from the plain, and the loud-sounding (crushing or 

 thundering) feet of the horses raised it.' 



The word is Ip/ySouTroi. Another translator of the 

 Iliad renders this passage : 



* Horse trod by horse lay foaming on the plain. 

 From the dry fields thick clouds of dust arise. 

 Shade the black host, and intercept the skies ; 

 The brass-hoof d steeds tumultuous plunge and bound. 

 And the thick thunder beats the labouring ground.' 



In another place (Book viii., lines 44-5) Bourgelat, 

 Cuming, and others, found their opinion in favour of the 

 Greeks having shod their horses at this early period, on 

 the fact that Homer speaks of Jove's horses as 



' The Iraxen-footed steeds 

 Of swiftest flight, with manes of flowing gold.' 



The translation of -^aT^-^oxoV 'ixTrcn is correct, and is ,f 

 rendered so by Chapman, an old versifier : *-^ 



'This said, his brasse-hou'd (brass-hoof d) winged horse 

 He did to chariot binde.' 



The ' brass-hoof was undoubtedly used by Homer in 

 a metaphorical sense to denote firmness and solidity, not 



