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Shoes in wood and iron

Wooden soleae were used to protect the feet of bathers from the hot underfloor heating of the bathhouse. Visitors to Vindolanda can see several examples in the museum. They were also used, according to Cicero, as part of the shameful clothing put on someone convicted of killing his mother:

Malleolus was convicted of matricide: at once (because there was no chance of escape) wooden sandals (soleae ligneae) were put on his feet; his face was wrapped in a wolf-skin and tied up, and he was taken off to prison.

Iron soleae were for mules. Catullus once wanted the husband of a lively young girl to be pitched off a rickety bridge, in hopes that his sluggishness might stick in the mud "as a mule leaves her iron shoe in the sticky mire."

ferream ut soleam tenaci in voragine mula.(Catullus 17)

Horseshoes can be seen in British museums - I saw my first one in Reading - and were not nailed on to the animal's feet, but were put on and taken off just like humans' shoes.

To be concluded later.

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