366 



HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



one of their writers makes the faintest allusion to its 

 erection/ 



As already observed, the climate of the North, where 

 hoofs are soft, roads rugged, and moisture prevails, may 

 have had much to do with the invention of shoeing among 

 the Celts, and compelled the Romans to resort to it when 

 they left their sunny southern climate, where hoofs are 

 hard, and their wonderful paved strata. 



If the relics found in the battle-field of Alesia belong 

 to the final struggle between Julius Cassar and the Gauls, 

 then the Romans must have been cognizant of this means 

 of defending horses' feet at a comparatively early period. 

 Beger^ has figured a curious bronze medal (fig. 141), which 



fig. 141 

 he classes among those of Julius Caesar, though he heads 

 them ' Numismatalncerta;' and this uncertainty deprives 

 it of much of the great interest it might possess with re- 

 gard to the subject of our treatise. On the obverse of 

 this medal appear two snakes with their tails entwined, and 

 in the middle of the circle they form are two objects 

 resembling one of the German shoes found by Linden- 



' Jf^ihon. Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 39. 

 i! Nuniismata Ronianorum, vol. ii. p. 1^97. 



