Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/217

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GERMANY.
189
fig. 57

in the same place, along with Frankish remains, though neither of them differ from those described by M. Quiquerez. All these specimens are now in the Royal Museum of Antiquities, Arms, and Artillery, at Brussels, to the obliging curator of which I am indebted for information relative to them.


In Germany, we find the same traces of antique shoes as are discovered in France, Switzerland, and Belgium. The Germans, like the Celts, represent one of the most remarkable races of early times; and though their history does not extend so far back as that of the Celtæ, yet the ancient writers made very little distinction between them, and when they first encountered them found they were also in possession of iron. The Cimbri or Germans, then, wore mail armour, had polished white shields, two-edged javelins, and large iron swords. They were also to some extent a horse-loving people; and when they fought with Marius they numbered 15,000 cavalry magnificently mounted. Each had a fine lofty helmet, and bore upon it the head of some savage beast, with its mouth gaping wide; an iron cuirass covered his body, and he carried a long lance or halberd in his hand. The Teucteri, a tribe on the banks of the Rhine, were famous for the discipline of their cavalry. Their ancestors, in the