320 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



never serve such a purpose, as they would no more pre- 

 serve the animal wearing them from sinking than the shoe 

 of the present day. 



Other authorities have not only decided that these 

 antique contrivances were fastened on the feet of solipeds 

 during the time of the Romans, but that they were in 

 use until a comparatively recent age. Baron de Bon- 

 stetten remarks : ' The employment of horse-shoes of this 

 form (modern) was only introduced by the Romans at a 

 late period ; those we see at Rome and in the " Museo 

 Borbonico" at Naples are a kind of shoes {soldiers) which 

 were attached by straps to the horse s feet, as the " in- 

 duere " of Pliny attests.' ' And the Abbe Cochet writes : 

 ' I also know that when a very distinguished Belgian 

 archaeologist, M. Hagemans, the author of "The Cabinet 

 d' Amateur," was at Milan in 1858, he saw in the collec- 

 tion of the Chevalier Ubaldo an iron hippo-sandal in 

 magnificent preservation, and which did not appear to 

 him to be very old. Prince Biondelli, a learned Milanese 

 archiEologist, who accompanied him, assured him that this 

 horse sabol ought to belong to the loth or nth century. 

 The Italian antiquary was also of opinion that the employ- 

 ment of shoes without nails was in vogue up to a late 

 period of the middle ages.' ^ 



With all due deference to the deservedly high re- 

 putation of the many authorities who have inspected and 

 pronounced these iron utensils ' sandals,' after carefully 

 examining and measuring them, and perusing the evidence 

 brought forward to support that opinion, I cannot but con- 

 clude that the general opinion is an erroneous one, and for 



' Rccueil crAiHiquilic's Suisses, p. 30. ' Op. cit. p. 163. 



