An essay on the knowledge of the ancients respecting the art of shoeing the horse, and of the probable period of the commencement of this art / [Bracy Clark].
- Bracy Clark
- Date:
- [1831]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on the knowledge of the ancients respecting the art of shoeing the horse, and of the probable period of the commencement of this art / [Bracy Clark]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![tread down thy streets Ezekiel xxvi. 11, speaking of the downfal of Tyre. Also, “ Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion : for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass Micah iv. 13. The remarkable expression of the prophet Isaiah, who, in foretelling the downfal of Jerusalem, uses these words: “Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses hoofs shall be accounted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind,” (ch. v. 28,) alluding to the Roman armies, who but too dreadfully fulfilled this prophecy. It is also to be remarked, that here the material selected for the metaphor or epithet of strength, is harder than brass, and such as could in no way be made into shoes.—Also their sculptured figures of horses on the celebrated columns of Trajan and Antoninus, every where without shoes, come in strong confirmation of this truth. We now pass to the consideration of various passages found in other ancient writers engaged in rustic occupations and in war, and we shall there plainly see that the horses could not have been shod; and if we afterwards show that defence was sometimes resorted to, we may be assured that it was not with shoes nailed on both sides of the foot, through an iron ring, as in the modern shoeing. As being the most ancient, we shall first begin with the warriors : in Diodorus Siculus, lib. xvii. c. 94, Ed. Weissilingii, p. 233, we have the following passage : k<m T(OV flEV t7T7r(t>V, Sia rrjv (TW£\eiav rrjg oSonropiag, rag ovAag v7TOTETpi<p5cu twv 07rAwv ret TrAeicTTa Kare^avocn avvE^aivE, that is, “ Equorum ungulae propter itinera nunquam remissa detritae et armorum pleraque absumptse erant.” And Cinnamus complains in a similar way of the consequences of detrition : na@oc yap ti roig avriov iTEcrpaaiv tmAtyovog, oSr] rw iinreuo ettictkoitteiv hwOe yeveL i<r\ix)piog avrovg EyuaEv. Caeteras copias manere in Attalia et equos curare jussit, “ nam malam cui est obnoxium equinum genus plantes pedum acciderat, graviterque efficerat.”—Editio Tollii Tra¬ ced. ad Rhenum, 1652, lib. iv. p. 194. Appianus also, in his account of the siege of Cyzicum by Lucullus, observes: t oig S' 'iinroig a^pEloig oi tote opTag kcu aoOEVEig Si a.Tpo(j>iav teal \wAEi)ovTag](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31872931_0014.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
