ROMAN POETS. 45 



who, with brazen car, and the prancing of his horn-hoofed 

 steeds, would needs counterfeit the storms and inimitable 

 thunder.'' And again: 'Their acclamations rise; and, 

 a squadron formed, the hoof beats with trampling din the 

 mouldering plain.' ^ In another place he also alludes to 

 the favourite epithet by which this animal was popularly 

 known to the Roman — that of Sonipes. ' On its sound- 

 ing hoofs the horse stands, and impatient champs the 

 foaming bit.' ^ 



In the Georgics, when he wishes to point out in a 

 particular manner, one of the most cherished qualities in 

 the noble animal he so beautifully describes in that poem 

 — the density and shape of the external covering of the 

 foot, — he eloquently says of the war-horse : ' With his hoof 

 of solid and deeply-resounding horn, he hollows out the 

 earth.'"* Or as Sotheby more poetically expresses it, 



' earth around 

 Rings to the sohd hoof that wear the ground.' 



Virgil mentions the wheels shod with iron as ferati 

 orhes, but makes not the most distant allusion to a like 

 garniture on hoofs. 



And M. A. Lucan (a.d. 60) in his poem ' Pharsalia,' 

 frequently mentions the nature of the horse's feet. For in- 

 stance, when speaking of the horses belonging to Curio's 



' Book V. 592-4. ' Book viii. 596-8. 



^ Book iv. 135. ' Stat sonipes, ac frena ferox spumantia mandit.' 

 Another example is found in the same poem : ' Quo sonipes ictu fiirit 

 arduus altaque jactat.' 



" Book iii. 88,— 



' Cavatque 

 Telhirem, et solidus graviter sonat ungula cornu.' 



