NOTES. 121 



" Regibus hie mos est, ubi equos mercantur : opertos 

 Inspiciunt, ne si facies, ut saepe, decora 

 Molli fulta pede est, emptorem inducat hiantem 

 Quod pulchrae dunes, breve quod caput, ardua cervix- 

 Hoc illi recte ; " 



which may be rendered, — 



Swells, when they buy horses, have a way of cov- 

 ering them up when they look them over, for fear that 

 a handsome shape set upon tender feet, as often hap- 

 pens, may take in the buyer as he hangs open-mouthed 

 over fine haunches, small head, and stately neck. 

 And they 're right in it. 



4. (Page 14.) Throughout this book it should 

 be remembered that the ancients did not shoe 

 their horses. The Romans, indeed, used for 

 mules the solea, a sort of sock of leather com- 

 pletely covering the hoof and tied about the 

 fetlock, strengthened underneath by a plate of 

 iron (Catullus, 17, 26). Nero substituted plates 

 of silver (Suetonius, Nero, 30), and his luxurious 

 wife, Poppaea, gold (Pliny, Nat. Hist, ^t^, 140). 

 But w^e do not hear of socks for horses, except 

 that in the retreat of the Ten Thousand an Arme- 

 nian showed the Greeks how to wTap their horses' 

 feet in little bags when travelling through deep 

 snow. But of course all this is quite different from 

 the modern practice of permanent shoeing. This 

 latter is first mentioned in literature in the time 

 of the Emperor Justinian, the first half of the 

 sixth century (Martin, Les Cavaliers Atheniens, 



