Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/644

 time of Constantine the Great, the horses of the Cataphracti, or heavy-armed cavalry, were covered with defensive materials, consisting either of scale-armour, or of plates of metal which had different names, according to the parts of the body they protected. This corps of cavalry was only formed in the later days of the Roman empire, when the discipline of the legions had been destroyed, and the chief dependence began to be placed upon horsemen. The Roman cavalry before this time had worn metal breastplates, or loricæ. This weighty armour, while it defended the warrior and his steed, necessarily impeded cavalry manœuvres, and increased the tendency to foot-lameness in the horses from want of shoeing. It is about this period that we find extemporaneous devices to protect the hoofs most frequently mentioned. The cumbrous protection, however, appears to have been soon given up; for we find Vegetius wondering by what fatality it happened, that the Romans, after having used heavy armour so late as the time of the Emperor Gratian (A.D. 376), should, by laying aside their breastplates and helmets, put themselves on a level with the barbarians, who were now commencing to sap the foundations of the empire. May not the reason for the apparent disregard of armour, which causes this writer to wonder, be found in the circumstance, that the great weight imposed upon the unshod hoofs, together with the rapidity of movement necessary to enable them to contend with such agile and unencumbered foes, rendered it imperative that this extra load should be dispensed with, in order to spare their horses as much as possible, and to follow or attack on more equal terms those whom we have assumed to possess