Artemedorus speaks of a shod horse, and uses the same kind of expression whilst speaking of other cattle. Winkelman has described a cut stone in the collection of Baron Stosch, on which is represented the figure of a man holding one foot of a horse, whilst another, kneeling, is employed in fastening a shoe. That it was not usual to shoe the war-horse, may be gathered from this,--when Mithridates was besieging Cyzicus, he was obliged to send his cavalry to Bythnia, because the hoofs of the horses were entirely spoiled and worn out. Diodorus Siculus informs us, that Alexander, in his expedition, proceeded with uninterrupted marches, until the feet of his horses were entirely broken and destroyed. A like instance occurs in Cinnamus, where the cavalry were obliged to be left behind, because the horses had suffered considerably in their hoofs, to which he adds, they were often liable. Hence it may, perhaps, appear, that such horse-shoes as are now in use, were unknown to the ancients; and Chardiu gives no representation of them in ancient Persian antiquities. In the grave of Childeric, a northern chieftain and King of France, was discovered a piece of iron, which the learned antiquarians who saw it, pronounced, from that portion of it which the rust had left, to have been an old horse-shoe; they saw, or thought they saw, four distinct apertures for nails on each side; but whilst they were endeavouring to remove the corrosive excrescence of rust, to ascertain with more certainty, it broke under their hands. The reason why we mentioned this here is, that if the relic discovered was really a horse-shoe, it must have been one of the most ancient specimens known; because, we find that monarch died in the year 481; his grave was discovered at Tournay in 1683. The occasion of his having a horse-shoe in his grave, was from the creed of his religion; the superstitious belief of the Scandinavians taught them to place implicit confidence in the power of this amulet, to prevent the ingress of evil spirits. The remains of this belief is even now often seen in the obscure streets of the British metropolis; and, indeed, throughout the country, where the mystic shoe frequently appears as the faithful guardian of the domestic threshold. It is, we understand, the opinion of the French historian, Daniel, that, in the ninth century, horses were not shod always, but only in the time of frost, and on some other very particular occasions.