Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/104

 on monuments, he never observed but one with four shoes.’

Fabretti's remarks are valuable in many respects, but with regard to shoeing it can scarcely be doubted that he has allowed himself to be deceived. (See above for Winckelmann's notice.) He writes: ‘I am certain that the shoeing; of draught animals was introduced before the time of Trajan (A.D. 98); but in this country we cannot recognize shoes on the statues, though many other details are found. For neither in the marble nor old brass statues, as it would seem, is a single thing else excepted. It would be by no means vain to assert that the Romans at this time did not shoe their war-horses, for lack of which they were not a little lightened in their work, and were less liable to receive injury from each other when at large.’ After referring to the writings of Xenophon, Suetonius, Catullus, Pliny, and to Poppæa's mules, which, he acknowledges, had foot defences attached by golden bands, he adds that there was seen a statue on the fourth landing of the staircase of the temple dedicated to the memory of Cyriacus Matthæsius, in the Cælian Garden, with shoes on the horses' feet fixed by nails. ‘But this statue has nothing to do with Trajan; because it was either destroyed by Severus, 120 years from Trajan's time, or it refers to something which took place in the last days of the Cæsars. This conclusion only do we arrive at, that those authors are ignorant of this matter who suppose that the application of iron shoes to the hoofs of horses was first made at the time of P. Theophilum Raynaudum in Tabulâ Chronologicâ, year DCCIC., by