Catullus, is of opinion that this solea was drawn over the hoof, and not fastened with nails, and in this opinion he is perhaps justified. An ordinary leather sock, such as would prove serviceable for the wear of a camel, would soon be found to be but little adapted to the rough usage of a horse or mule; the sharp unyielding margin of the hoof-wall must in a very brief space, and particularly on paved roads or rocky ground, have cut through any envelope of hide or other soft material; so borrowing the idea from their own caliga or calceus, or the wheel—the ferati orbes of Virgil, they shod this covering with stronger materials, such as brass, iron, or even silver, or gold, but most frequently iron. Like their shoes, these soleae, or horse-sandals, were in all probability fastened round the legs with loops and straps, or fillets. It may be observed here that the name given to their own shoe or sandal—calceus or calceamentum—was never given to this appliance for horses and mules, which is always designated solea; the act of shoeing, however, is found expressed by the verb calceo, and is alike employed for man and beast.
The fastening with thongs or straps must of course have been a very insecure one, as modern experience has taught us, and the leathern sole covering the ground surface of the foot would still further tend to weaken it, particularly in marshy or clayey soil. Even now, with our incalculably firmer-attached armature, it is well known that in the hunting-field, when crossing heavy ground, a leather sole acts like a sucker, and is almost certain to cause the shoe which covers it to be left in the mire. Such must have been a frequent occurrence with
