282 
REVIEW OF CLARKES ESSAY 
itinerum deteruntur,’ lib. 2, c. 55; also, ‘in agendo intinere dam¬ 
num e diurno detritis pedibus majus sit quam per noctis quietem 
tantum renasci possit,’ (Ruellius Script. Graeci Veterin. lib. 2, 
fol. 99), that the ancients did not generally shoe their horses; 
and that when they did, it was of the most simple kind, and 
much as they w^ere used to shoe their own feet; and, as we have 
before described, a sock of leather or felt, going round the whole 
foot, with sometimes lemnisci, and sometimes with iron attached 
to strengthen them, as is seen pretty plainly in the following pas¬ 
sage : c pedis quos sanos habet glante ferreo vel si difuerit, spartea 
calceatis, cui lemniscos subjicies, et addita fasicola diligentissime 
colligabis, et suppositiciam facies parti illi qua misera est, ut 
pi anas ungulas possit ponere :’ Vegetius , lib. 3, c. 13. Here 
we see, perhaps, the whole machinery of their shoeing, and plainly 
and intelligibly enough; but we must not pass over the unique 
expression glante ferreo, which occurs here, and is not again seen 
in this or any other writer that we know of: it may, perhaps, 
be but an insertion or corruption of the text with which, by fre¬ 
quent transcription, the work abounds.”—“It may have been, 
possibly, a piece of iron turned round to the figure of the horse’s 
hoof, and which was then fastened on by rivets, or otherwise, to 
the lemnisci or leather soles; and this, it is not at all impossible, 
might, under the pressure of necessity, have been applied directly 
to the foot itself, and given birth to the modern horseshoe.” 
Having considered the nature of their shoes, our author advances 
a step further, and inquires how they were fastened on. “ This,” 
he says, “must have seemed so common and natural to them, 
that a description of it could hardly have been expected : we have 
it, however, in the above passage, where it says ‘ et addita fasciola 
diligentissime colligabis;’ and that this was really the way, we 
can give further collateral proof from another and indubitable 
source. 
“ Engaged some years back in looking over the veterinary Greek 
writers, I was led to observe, that Apsyrtus complained of the 
horses’ legs being often cut with the violence used in the application 
of these bands, even so as to injure and lay open the joints; and 
he tells you how they were used to treat it. Having copied this 
passage carefully into my former dissertation (1st edition, 1809), 
I was, shortly after sending it forth, induced to visit the British 
Museum, in order to see some horseshoes of the nailed kind, 
that were positively said to have been found in the excavations of 
Herculaneum, but which proved not to be true, for they had, as 
I ascertained on inquiry of Sir Joseph Banks himself, who had 
. sent them to the Museum, been found in a boggy pit on his 
estate in Lincolnshire, and appeared, on examination, of about the 
