Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/38

 into their service, is a great inducement to review, in as graphic a manner as possible, all that has been said in relation to the existence, non-existence, or status of this art among them. And in this inquiry the poet, painter, and sculptor have some interest, inasmuch as the correctness or incorrectness of their delineations, when this apparently trifling detail comes to be treated, will depend. This will be exemplified hereafter.

It is a remarkable circumstance that, considering the mighty influence the horse has been called on to exercise on the destiny of nations and the progress of civilization from the earliest times,—at one period an important adjunct to luxury, as well as a mainspring of utility; at another, an essential element in the arts of peace, and a still more potent one in that of war,—the first written indication of horse-shoeing (as we now understand the term) is only found in the annals of a comparatively recent period. The knowledge of being able to defend from undue wear and injury such an important organ as the horse's foot, and by such an efficacious, yet simple means, one would think indispensable to those who, in primitive times, so largely employed horses, and sought from them such important services. Such is not the case, however, if an entire omission of the fact in their writings or on their monuments be received as proof; and though several authors of some weight have in recent years asserted that the ancients were acquainted with this art, and have adduced evidence which appears to substantiate their opinion, yet a careful examination of the times and the meaning of the texts has, in nearly every case, tended to lead others to the opposite conclusion.