20 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



am aware, to prove that the ancient Greeks were cogni- 

 zant of hoof defences, as we now employ them, except the 

 finding of a horse's hoof (of stone ?) in the ruins of the 

 Parthenon. In alkiding to this, Mr Syer Cuming, who 

 appears to have taken some interest in the subject, asks, 

 ' Does not Homer alkide to shoes when he speaks of 

 " brazen-footed horses ?" {■^aKxoTrohsg Ittttoi). Mr Cureton 

 informs me that he has seen horse-shoes of bronze.' ' 



And at a later period he writes, ' Since the publication 

 of my paper a few facts have come to light, which tend 

 to prove in an eminent degree the assertion therein ad- 

 vanced, namely, that the horses of the classic ages were 

 shod in a similar way to those of our own day. At the 

 time the paper was produced, we had little to countenance 

 the idea that the early Greeks protected the feet of their 

 steeds with metallic shoes, beyond the bare fact that some 

 ancient horse-shoes of bronze were known to be in exist- 

 ence, and the poetical mention of " brazen-footed horses" 

 in the Iliad (viii. 41, xiii. 23). Within these few years, 

 however, Mr Charles Newton, while Vice-consul at My- 

 tilene, found among the fragments of the Parthenon, a 

 horse's hoof with holes all around the inside, clearly indi- 

 cating where a metallic shoe had been fastened, and it is 

 quite unlikely that any such defence should appear upon 

 a statue if a similar article had not been in actual use at 

 the time.' ^ 



It must be confessed that the discovery of a horse's 

 foot among the world-renowned ruins of the Parthenon, 

 with what appeared to be holes «// round the inside only, 



' Journal of the Archaeological Association, vol. vi. 

 ^ Ibid. vol. xvi. 



