commonly supposed of comparatively modern origin, are really of a remote antiquity. Spurs and saddles are in this category: of the former we can produce ancient examples; the latter are indicated in monuments.'[1]
This discovery by the talented English antiquarian (to whom I am indebted for the two illustrations of this relic) is a most important one for our subject, as it is the only monument of the Romano-Gallic period, and is indeed the first of any ancient sculpture, exhibiting horses really shod. I use the term 'horses,' as it is evident Mr Smith has overlooked the specific differences between them and mules. The heads, ears, and general physiognomy are those of horses, and the tails, which in mules have but little more than a tuft of hair at the ends, are here truly equine. The limbs and feet are also widely different from those of the hybrid, which are light, the hoofs being particularly small in proportion to the size of the animal. Here we have the hoofs enormously large—amounting almost to a deformity, and such as no mule ever could have. The horses, altogether, are extremely coarse, lymphatic-looking animals—ungainly and clumsy to a marked degree. The hoofs undoubtedly exhibit traces of shoeing in this copy, which Mr Smith, who drew it, asserts is absolutely correct. It must be confessed that the number of nails on each side exceeds those in any of the specimens of shoes we have seen of that age: there are six on each side of the fore-foot, and five in the hind, making twelve and ten nails for each hoof. But the artist, in his anxiety to demonstrate that these heavy, unwieldy creatures were so completed in their equipment, has perhaps not scrupled
- ↑ Collectanea Antiqua, vol. vi. p. 18.
