48 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



wear to be discovered on their surface — a fact worthy of 

 notice. The Romans travelled very fast on them, so well 

 adapted were they, all things considered, for the preserva- 

 tion of the horses' hoofs. 



Towards the Christian era, Augustus introduced cou- 

 riers (pub/ici Cursores, or Veredarii) to forward the public 

 despatches, and along these roads government post-houses 

 {mutationes) were erected at intervals of five or six miles, 

 and each was constantly furnished with forty horses. By 

 means of these very frequent relays, no doubt necessary 

 where the hoofs were exposed to damaging attrition, it 

 was possible to travel a hundred miles a day. 



About a century before our era, Cicero received at 

 Rome, on the 28th September, a letter dated in Britain 

 the first day of the same month. Considering the passage 

 by sea, and crossing the Alps, or making a wide detour to 

 avoid this troublesome mountain range, the twenty-six 

 days appear a remarkably short space of time to travel 

 this distance in. And three hundred years later, during 

 the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, Caesarius, an im- 

 portant magistrate, travelled from Antioch to Constan- 

 tinople, a distance of 725 Roman {66^ English) miles, in 

 six days. 



At Terracina, where a stony ridge is cut through to a 

 depth of 16 feet to form the public way, the glassy surface 

 of this rocky thoroughfare is grooved {sillonne) trans- 

 versely, so that the horses might have foot-hold. 



It may here be noticed that at Tempe, by the side of 

 the Peneus, the highway is excavated in the rock, but is 

 so steep and rugged, that possibly to save their horses' 

 hoofs, as well as to prevent their tumbling into the river. 



