Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/61

 mane as if to soothe him, while another individual, also nude, holds up one of the fore feet, as if to apply a shoe. The attitude is very striking, and it would be interesting to discover why such a group should be represented on a coinage.

It may be observed, however, that there is no instrument in the hands of the dismounted figure whereby to fasten on the shoe, if such be his vocation, and that his attitude is not a very convenient one. This is, nevertheless, the posture assumed on the continent of Europe, and generally all over the East, by the workman who arms the hoofs, but then there is another person to hold up the limb. In this example he may be only trying on a shoe; though the figure on the horse's back would not add to the facility with which this operation might otherwise be performed. I may mention that I have seen and heard of troop horses which, though otherwise tractable, would scarcely allow themselves to be shod unless a man were seated on their backs, stroking their ears and necks in the manner shown on the Greek coin; and Cæsar Fiaschi, in the fifteenth century, recommends for horses that will not be shod quietly, that ‘mots plaisants’ be used, and ‘faire mettre un cavalier sur le dos.’ It has been suggested that a stone is being removed from the sole; but without shoes it is almost, if not quite, impossible that a stone could lodge in the foot. Might he not be fastening on a temporary shoe or sock?

Beyond the illustration this affords, we have no evidence of shoeing among the Greeks; and, after all, this may be only an allegorical representation, or a reference to some mythological subject.