Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/393

 ferreæ were not like the modern shoes, then it might be surmised that with people professing Druidism—a religion represented by a caste who had a monopoly of working in iron, the requisite knowledge being only acquired after initiation, and which it was worse than sacrilege to divulge—would not be likely to yield their most sacred secrets to their conquerors, and put them on an equality with themselves. We know that the Romans were, for centuries, in contact with the Gauls, and yet had only weapons of bronze; and that while their plough was of the most primitive description, even in the time of Virgil, the Gauls had an implement approaching perfection; and so with other objects in metallurgy.

The Romans were, in several respects, slow to adopt or improve; and prejudice, especially towards the arts of a conquered and a barbarous people, may have operated strongly with regard to shoeing. After a time they appear to have practised it, but to a limited extent; and only (to judge from the evidence at present before us) in those countries where it was already in use on their arrival did they attempt it. But why was it not mentioned by their historians or hippiatrists? When we find these writers anxiously describing the evils resulting to the hoofs from travelling, it might be expected that so simple, and yet so bold, a means of preventing them would have obtained notice. This omission, however, need not cause us so much surprise when we learn that sometimes great undertakings were overlooked, forgotten, or left unrecorded by the Roman historians. The Caledonian Wall, for example, was a most important work, entailing a vast amount of labour, and built by the Romans themselves, yet only