long in showing us shoes made for the single claw of the ox (fig. 129), and yet belonging to this class of pretended hippo-sandals. . . . . whose name it behoves us to rectify . . . . . it should be bu-sandal.' It appears to have been forgotten that a bisulcus or cloven-footed animal cannot travel easily with its digits restrained by a solid plate with two iron bands compressing them on each side. And we may ask if the experiment was tried of making oxen walk for a mile or two with any of these Besançon specimens? None of those I have examined would fit the foot of an ox, and there is no reason to suppose that they were ever used for that purpose by the Romans. I have already noted that tips of iron, conjectured to have armed the feet of cattle, were recently found at Pompeii. Until I have inspected these articles, or seen drawings of them, I cannot decide as to their having been so employed, though I think it improbable, as Cato the Censor (B.C. 160) speaks of the application of liquid pitch to the under surface of the hoofs of oxen to preserve them from wear, as is now done in the East with the feet of elephants and camels: 'Boves ne pedes subterant, priusquam in viam quoquam ages, pice liquidam cornua infima unguito.'[1]
It will then, I think, be admitted that these strange-looking iron plates are not horse, mule, or ox sandals, and that they could not be employed as such. The form and situation of the clips and hooks alone forbid such a supposition, and the Romans would indeed deserve to be classed among the most clumsy of all contrivers if they ever attempted to put such a garniture on their horses', mules', or oxen's feet, even supposing they were ignorant
- ↑ De Re Rustica, cap. 72.
