several times alludes to the soleæ spartæa or shoes, of Spanish broom, particularly for the ox when foot-sore, or when disease was present; and to show that this animal sometimes wore this, or something analogous, when travelling or at work, he writes: ‘If the sock has hurt his pastern or hoof, wrap up hard pitch and hog's lard,’etc. ‘But if the sock has entered into it, the sea-lettuce, which the Greeks call Tithymallos, mixed with salt, is put upon it. Also when his feet are worn and bruised underneath, they are washed with ox's urine made warm; then he is forced to tread upon the burning-hot embers of vine twigs, and his hoofs are anointed with tar, together with oil and hog's lard. Nevertheless, they do not go so lame if, when they are unyoked from their work, their hoofs be washed with cold water, and their pasterns and coronets, as well as the cleft of the hoof itself, be rubbed with old hog's lard.’ ‘If he has trodden upon a nail, or pierced his hoof with a sharp tile or stone . . . . Then having a shoe of Spanish broom put upon it for the space of three days,’[1]etc.
With regard to the horse, we often find the words ‘animal calciabis,’ ’calciatis pedibus per multos dies;’ and when describing the treatment for a horse that has bruised or inflamed his foot, he finishes by adding, ‘you shall take care to put a shoe of Spanish broom upon it, that, after the evacuation of the humours, the hoof may be repaired.’[2] (Sparcia calciare curabis, ut post egestione humore ungula reparetur.)
From this veterinarian, then, we might be led to think that the Romans did not generally shoe their horses, mules, or oxen; and that when they were impelled to do so from
