The appliance found at Satricum (Fig. 31) is made in the following manner: Two small plates of gold, stamped out, represent respectively the lingual and labial superficies of a middle lower incisor; these two pieces soldered together form the crown of the tooth. At its base the crown is soldered, back and front, to a narrow strip of gold which folds back on itself at each end, so as to tightly encircle the two neighboring teeth on the right and on the left, which thus serve as supports to the appliance. We are now, therefore, able not only to affirm that the Etruscans knew how to execute a kind of _bridge work_, but that later the dentists of ancient Rome even carried out _crown work_. This, notwithstanding the examples of dental prosthesis discovered up to now in Roman and Etruscan tombs, can in no way be considered as representing all the varieties of dental prosthesis of ancient construction. It is to be hoped that, in spite of the destructive action of time, in continuing the excavations and archæological researches, many other specimens of early dental prosthesis will yet come to light. In any case, judging by some indications to be found in Latin literature, it must be admitted that the Roman dentists of antiquity constructed other kinds of prosthesis besides the specimens we possess, and in particular movable dentures. We are led to suppose this, not only from the above cited epigram of Martial, but also from what we read in one of the satires of Horace, who dates contemporarily with Augustus, and therefore anteriorly to Martial. Speaking of two old witches who had been put to flight by Priapus, Horace writes: “You would have laughed to see those two old witches run toward the town, losing in their flight, Canidia, her false teeth, Sagania, her false hair.”[169] Now, as Prof. Deneffe very rightly observes, the prosthetic appliances of antiquity known to us are so firmly fixed to the natural teeth that no race, however unbridled, could ever have made them fall out of the mouth. It must, therefore, be admitted, as I have said, that the ancients constructed other kinds of dental appliances, of which no specimens have, as yet, been discovered. Neither in Celsus nor in Pliny, nor in any other Roman writers on medicine, do we find any allusion to the art of dentistry. The doctors of those days probably had no idea of the advantages which could be derived from dental prosthesis in regard to digestion and consequently to the health of the whole body. They therefore must have considered artificial teeth as something totally foreign to their art, and intended solely to hide a physical defect. It is therefore not at all surprising that they have not treated of this subject.