88 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



eluding that the art of arming the ground surface of the 

 hoof with a metal plate and nails was unknown to the 

 antique civilization of the Greeks and Romans. Had 

 such a handicraft been in existence among them, without 

 a doubt it would have obtained particular notice in more 

 ways than one, but especially by the veterinary writers. 

 And so proud were the Romans of everything relating to 

 the horse, that shoes on his hoofs, making him a still more 

 perfect animal, and adding to his appearance, would have 

 been portrayed by the chisels of their sculptors, who, 

 faithful to their art in every respect, never omitted the 

 most apparently trivial or minute detail from the subjects 

 they have immortalized. We find them, for example, 

 giving an exact representation of the shoes worn by the 

 soldiers, with the nails that oftentimes studded the soles ; 

 and even in the carriage-wheels depicted by them, we can 

 see the nails or rivets which bound the iron hoops to their 

 circumference. Yet neither in the remains of ancient 

 sculpture, among the ruins of Persepolis, on Trajan's 

 column, or those of Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, and 

 others, nor yet on the equestrian statues which still remain 

 to us, is such a trophy of man's skill to be found. 



As another instance, how^ever, of the wonderful identity 

 and universality of purpose and instinct which impels 

 mankind in the most widely separated regions of the globe 

 to adopt certain measures and particular objects for the 

 requirements of their existence, the soleae of the Roman 

 writers, and the desire for hard hoofs, are not without 

 interest to the ethnologist. 



villages that farriers are to be met with, that is to say, in places fifty or 

 sixty leagues distant from each other,' — Travels in Peru, p. 266. 



