horses are made to stand on planks raised above the ground, in order, I suppose, that the undefended hoots may be kept dry and hard.
In selecting horses, Columella recommends that they should have ‘hard, upright hoofs, hollow in the sole, and round, with medium-sized coronets.’[1] Elsewhere he advises that the foal should be taken from its dam when a year old, and pastured among the mountains and in other exposed or inhospitable places, ‘so that the hoofs may be hardened to resist wear, and then become fitted for long journeys.’[2]
And Pliny, about this period, observes, in speaking of mules, ‘They are produced by an union between the mare and the domestic ass; they are swift, and have extremely hard feet.’[3]
Julius Pollux, a Greek, and the favourite and preceptor of the Emperor Commodus, in whose reign he died (A.D. 238), has left us, in one of his works,[4] some excellent maxims concerning horses. Indicating the particulars in which a good horse differed from a bad one he maintains that it is more especially in the nature of their feet. ‘A corpore quidem ungulae cavae, ut scilicet quam vocant testudinem, elata sit, ne in solum impingens, molestetur: hujusmodi enim ungula (ut Xenophon inquit)
- ↑ Lib. vi. p. 50. ‘Duris ungulis et altis, et concavis rotundisque, quibus coronae mediocres superpositae sunt.’
- ↑ Ibid. p. 63. ‘Ut ungulas duret sitque postea longis itineribus habilis.’
- ↑ Hist. Natural. ‘Generantur ex equâ et onagris mansuefactis mulae velocis in cursu, duritiâ, eximiâ pedum.’
- ↑ Onomasticon, lib. i. cap. 11; De Corpore et Animo Equi Boni et Mali.
