46 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSESHOEING. 



detachment, which had fallen into an ambuscade when 

 attacking the Numidians, he says : ' Not there did the 

 charger, moved by the clanging of trumpets, shake the 

 rocks with the beating of his hoof. .... Nor avails it 

 any one to have cut short the delay of his hojiiy-hoofed 

 steed, for they have neither space nor force for the onset.'' 

 And referring to an incident in the campaign which cul- 

 minated in that important engagement, it is written : 

 ' Pompey care deters, by reason of the land being ex- 

 hausted for affording fodder, which the horseman in his 

 course has trodden down, and with quickened steps the 

 horny -hoof \\2i?> beaten down the shooting field.' ^ 



The poet Claudianus, three centuries later, addressing 

 the Emperor Honorius, in one of his epigrams exclaims, 



' O felix sonipes cui tanti fraena mereri 

 Numinis.' 



Even so late as the 12th century, Fitz-Stephens, when 

 describing London, and the excellent quality of the horses, 

 remarks, 'Cum talium sonipedem cursus imminet,' etc. The 

 expression was, doubtless, borrowed from Virgil, or some 

 of the old Latin poets. And yet later, the characteristic 

 designation is alluded to, for Ludwig Carrio, in comment- 

 ing on Leutprand's Chronicle, quotes an old verse, a line 

 of which runs : ' His parvus sonipes, nee marti notus.' 



Though the appellation may be traced to the Greeks, 

 yet it has been surmised that it had its origin with the 

 Romans, from the circumstance that in consequence of 

 their not knowing how to protect their horses' feet in a 

 substantial manner, they were compelled to construct their 

 roads to accommodate the unarmed hoof; thus were formed 



' Book iv. 749-67. ' Book vi. 



