ON HOltSE-SHOES. 695 
facts that may be in their possession, thereby enabling us to 
investigate more fully this interesting question. 
I am, dear Sirs, 
Yours very truly, 
M. J. Harpley, V.S. 
Royal Horse Guards. 
To the Editors of ‘ The Veterinarian .’ 
Extracts from the ( Journal of the Archaeological Association 
vol. xiv. 
At a meeting of the society, Mr. H. Syer Cuming read 
the following additional notes on horse-shoes, as a continua¬ 
tion of his paper on the subject. 
“ Since the publication of my paper on horse-shoes in our 
journal, a few facts have come to light which tend to prove 
in an eminent degree the assertion therein advanced, namely, 
that the horses of the classic ages were shod in a similar way 
to those of our own day. 
“ At the time the paper was produced, we had little to 
countenance the idea that the early Greeks protected the 
feet of their steeds with metallic shoes, beyond the bare fact 
that some ancient horse-shoes of bronze were known to be in 
existence, and the poetical mention of f brazen footed horses 3 
in the Iliad (xiii, 23, viii, 41). Within these few years, how¬ 
ever, Mr. Charles Newton, while vice-consul at Mytilene, 
found among the fragments of the Parthenon, a horse’s hoof 
with holes all around the inside, clearly indicating where a 
metallic shoe had been fastened, and it is quite unlikely that 
any such defence should appear upon a statue if a similar 
article had not been in actual use at the time. 
“ Should there still remain some uncertainty about the 
employment of metallic horse-shoes among the Greeks, the 
fact of their use by the Romans, has received increased 
confirmation.* 
“ There has been found at Stanford-Bury in Bedfordshire, 
an iron implement evidently made to pick the horses hoofs, 
and fasten its shoes, together with the remains of the horse 
and its rider, associated with Roman reliquiae.f And in 
August, 1854, there was discovered in Long Smith Street, 
Gloucester, at the depth of some nine or ten feet from the 
surface, and mingled with numerous fragments of Roman 
fictilia, the outer half of a strong iron horse-shoe, with one 
* For the discovery of an iron horse-shoe among Roman remains in 
France, see ‘Journal,’ vii, 135. 
f See ‘Gent. Mag.,’ Nov., 1848, p. 518. 
