8o HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



on monuments, he never observed but one with four 

 shoes.'' 



Fabretti's remarks are vakiable in many respects, but 

 with regard to shoeing it can scarcely be doubted that he 

 has allowed himself to be deceived. (See above for 

 Winckelmann's notice.) He writes : ' I am certain that 

 the shoeing of draught animals was introduced before the 

 time of Trajan (a.d. 98); but in this country we cannot 

 recognize shoes on the statues, though many other de- 

 tails are found. For neither in the marble nor old brass 

 statues, as it would seem, is a single thing else excepted. 

 It would be by no means vain to assert that the Romans 

 at this time did not shoe their war-horses, for lack of 

 which they were not a little lightened in their work, 

 and were less liable to receive injury from each other 

 when at large.' After referring to the wTitings of Xeno- 

 phon, Suetonius, Catullus, Pliny, and to Poppaea's mules, 

 which, he acknowledges, had foot defences attached by 

 golden bands, he adds that there was seen a statue on the 

 fourth landing of the staircase of the temple dedicated to 

 the memory of Cyriacus Matthasius, in the Caelian Garden, 

 with shoes on the horses' feet fixed by nails. 'But this 

 statue has nothing to do with Trajan ; because it was 

 either destroyed by Severus, 1 20 years from Trajan's time, 

 or it refers to something which took place in the last days 

 of the Caesars. This conclusion only do we arrive at, 

 that those authors are ignorant of this matter who sup- 

 pose that the application of iron shoes to the hoofs of 

 horses was first made at the time of P. Theophilum 

 Raynaudum in Tabula Chronologica, year DCCIC, by 



' Op. cit., vol. vii. p. 558. 



