Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/99

 This passage, and the term ‘hippopodes,’ here used for the first and only time in the ancient veterinary writers, obviously refers to the sandal or solea worn by horses or mules on rare occasions, and to the way in which it was maintained on the extremities by the corrigiœ, or rather the fasciolœ, mentioned by Vegetius. That this was really the case, a very fine terra-cotta or baked clay (the kind named ‘typi’ by Pliny), now in the British Museum (2nd vase Room, and marked T 337), has been brought forward by Bracy Clark as a proof (fig. 3). fig. 3

The example is certainly, so far as I can ascertain, unique; but taken in connection with what the ancient authors have said in regard to this matter, it would appear to afford conclusive evidence. The age of the tablet is, unfortunately, unknown; but it belongs to a number which were found about the year 1765, in a dry well, near the Porta Latina,