64 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



As Mr Clark has remarked, the circumstance of the 

 emperor's muleteer dismounting and fastening on the 

 shoes of the mules, in order to detain the car while the 

 solicitor who had bribed him presented his petition, 

 would show that they were not attached by nails ; for 

 nailed shoes are not so readily put on in the highway, 

 and coachmen would not be likely to carry tools and 

 other requisites for this purpose. The passage in Suetonius 

 is against such an inference. The muleteer doubtless dis- 

 mounted to readjust, or make more secure, the fastenings 

 of some of the solec^, which were supposed to have broken 

 loose. 



And Ribauld de la Chapelle,' in the last century, was 

 also of opinion that the ancient Romans did not put the 

 modern-shaped shoe on their horses or mules, but en- 

 veloped them in a sock {sabot), an act indicated by the 

 words, '- Jumentis soleas inducere.' He alludes to this 

 instance in the Life of Vespasian, where the muleteer 

 could change the coverings of the mules' feet when they 

 were worn out. 



Suetonius, in commenting on the great extravagance 

 of Nero (a.d. 6o), asserts that he never travelled with less 

 than a thousand four-wheeled chariots, drawn by mules 

 whose feet were shod with silver ; and the drivers of which 

 were dressed in scarlet jackets of the finest Canusian 

 cloth. ^ And the elder Pliny, speaking of the instances o 

 luxury in silver plate among the Romans, amongst others 

 relates the following : ' We find the orator Calvus com- 



' Dissertation sur FOrigine des Francs, etc., p. 199. 

 " De Neroue ipso Tranquillas, cap. xxx. ' Nunquam carrucis minus 

 mille fecisse iter traditur, soleis niularum argenteis,' 



