254 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



rial and pontifical dignity. A few yards from hence was 

 dug up the bones of a horse, and the ashes of his rider, 

 together with an iron implement, evidently formed to pick 

 the horse's hoofs, and fasten his shoes. With these were 

 found a small silver musical instrument, a denarius of 

 Septimus Geta, representing him at the age of nine or ten 

 years ; another also of Geta was found near, apparently 

 two or three years older ; these coins were of fine work- 

 manship and in beautiful condition." 



We may be allowed to entertain doubts as to the 

 article named being a hoof-pick ; such an instrument 

 would scarcely be necessary, if at all, with such narrow 

 shoes, which had no concavity between them and the 

 sole, as at a later period. 



At Uriconium or Viroconium, now Wroxeter, in 

 Shropshire, and which was one of the largest and most im- 

 portant Roman towns before its destruction in the middle 

 of the fifth eentury, a fragment of a small horse-shoe has 

 been gathered, but it is so oxidized and imperfect that 

 none of its details can be made out. It is now in the 

 Shrewsbury Museum. 



A horse-shoe, supposed to be Roman, has been found 

 at the ancient Conderum, Northumberlandshire. There 

 is a drawing given of it in the Archaeologia ^liana (vol. 

 vi. p. 3), but no particulars as to its discovery or its 

 dimensions. It resembles somewhat, if one can judge 

 from the figure, those in the Cirencester Museum and at 

 Chedworth, the cover of the shoe being wide, the borders 

 even, and the foot-surface concave. 



In the Rolfe collection of the Liverpool Museum is a 

 ' Gentleman's Magazine, p. 518, 1848. 



