SO´LEA
SO´LEA
1. The most primitive form of footgear is the sandal. It consists simply of a
sole of matting, leather, felt, or wood bound to the foot by thongs and
straps. It was not only worn by the Greeks and Romans of all periods, but
still survives. In studying its use in classical times, there is great
difficulty in distinguishing it from the various forms of boots and shoes
which were used side by side with it. Even if we were able to identify the
various shapes mentioned in literature with those shown on the monuments,
the question would not be settled, for the transition from one class to
another is represented by so many intermediate forms that a hard and fast
line cannot be drawn.
In the Homeric age the
πέδιλα, which were
worn by men (
Il.. 2.44, &c.), are doubtless sandals,
for they are called
ὑποδήματα (
Od. 8.368) and bound to the foot (
Il. 24.340, &c.). Whether women used
them or not is doubtful, though goddesses wore them out-of-doors (
Il. 14.186), The epithets
καλά, χρυσεῖα, ἀυβρόσια, given to them,
convey no information as to their shape and make. Those, however, worn by
common folk must have been simplicity itself, for we are told how Eumaeus,
when setting out for the city, made himself a pair out of a well-dressed
ox-hide (
Od. 14.23). Such sandals remained
in use in the country, being mentioned by Sappho (
Frag. 98,
Bergk,
τὰ δὲ σάμβαλα πεμπεβόηα), and
Hesiod's advice to have them lined with felt (
Op. 541)
suggests that they were of the same kind as the sandals, worn over very
thick stockings by the peoples of the lower Danube, the form adopted by the
Bulgarian army being the best known. Such sandals were made in extremities
even out of raw hide, and were known as
καρβατίναι (
Xen. Anab. 4.5).
In classical times it was not unusual among the Greeks to go barefoot. With
the Spartans this was indeed part of their discipline (
Xen. Rep. Lac. 2.3, and
passages on
ἀνυποδησία in
Becker-Göll,
Charikles, 3.267), and philosophers
[p. 2.685]and others of an ascetic turn adopted the custom
of Athens and elsewhere (cf. Theocr. 14.5,
Πυθαγορικτὰς ὠχρὸς κἀνυπόδητος). Yet even Socrates, the
best known of the barefoot philosophers (
Aristoph. Cl. 103), though he wore no shoes in the snow and ice
at Potidaea, put on slippers when going to Agathon's supper (Plato,
Symp. 174), as was the fashion (
Aristoph. Kn. 889). The cut and fit of his
sandals and shoes was indeed not one of the least of the Greek dandy's
anxieties (Plato,
Phaedo, p. 64 D), and many
are the jokes at ill-fitting boots (
Aristoph.
Kn. 321), which were the sure mark of a boor (Theophr.
Char. 4). The general name for all sandals is
ὑπόδημα, the word
σανδάλιον or
σάνδαλον being
also used in the same sense (the old distinction between these words is due
to a mistake of Salmasius; cf. Pollux, 7.84, ed. Kuhn).
The sole of the sandal (
πέλμα, κάττυμα) was
of one piece or several layers of leather. One, for instance, discovered in
the Tauric Chersonnese and now at St. Petersburg, has a sole made of eleven
or twelve layers of leather, the upper surface being ornamented with gold
(Stephani,
Compte Rendu, 1865; cf. 1881, p. 142, and Taf. 3.4
and 5). Thick soles were in fact worn, like modern high heels, to give
ladies greater height (cf.
Xen. Oec.
10, 2). Wood was used as well as leather, not only for coarse cheap
clogs (
κρούπεζαι,
sculponeae), but for expensive and delicate
sandals for ladies' wear (
τυρρηνικά,, Poll.
7.92; Clem. Alex.
Paed. 2.11, 116). A specimen, which however
probably belongs to Roman times, was discovered in 1876 near Kertsch in the
Crimea. It is formed of three layers, joined together by pegs, the top layer
being painted red and covered with leather. Round the edge are a number of
pairs of holes for attaching strings or thongs (
Compte Rendu,
1881, p. 143, with fig.). Cork was also used for soles (cf. Alexis ap.
Athen. 13.568).
The most characteristic feature of the sandal was the
ζυγὸς or
ζυγὸν, a strap
which passed across the toes and held it on the foot (Arist.
Lys. 416, and Schol.
ad loc.). (In
Strabo vi. p.259, however,
ἄζυγα σανδ. certainly means, as Becker takes it
in opposition to Bötticher,
odd sandals, i.
e. not a pair.) To the
ζυγὸς was attached a
thong, which passed between the great toe and the second toe. This and the
other straps which held the other parts of the sole were, as a rule, kept
tight by a latchet (
lingula) over the instep.
This was of metal, and of a heart-or leaf-shape. It was part of Parrhasius's
magnificence to have had latchets of gold on his slippers (
χρυσοι_ς τε ἀνασπαστοῖς ἐπέσφιγγε τῶν βλαυτῶν τοὺς
ἀναγεγέας,
Ath. 12.543 f). The network of straps and
thongs was sometimes so thick as to make the sandals practically a shoe, and
often reached as far as the calves. Such were doubtless the
ῥαΐδια,, which Pollux (7.64) explains as
πολυέλικτον ὑπόδημα.
Of the different varieties, for the
βλαῦται
see
CALCEUS Vol. I. p. 332. The
βαυκίδες, which were also fashionable
and expensive (Poll. 7.94), were probably somewhat the same, but only worn
by women. Aristophanes also mentions
περιβαρίδες as a luxurious form of sandal (
Lys.
45, 47, 53), though Pollux says that it was only worn by slaves. [For the
κρῆπις, see
CREPIDA]
As we have said,
ὑποδήματα is a word used
vaguely, and, though generally meaning sandals, stands sometimes for shoes.
Thus in the Edict of Diocletian we have
ὑποδήματα
Βαβυλωνικά,, the Latin equivalents being
soleae Babylonicae (9.17) and
socci Babylonici
(9.23). Again, the
περσικαί, a favourite
woman's shoe at Athens (Arist.
Thesm. 734;
Eccl. 319), must have had a close upper (cf. Id.
Nub. 151).
At Rome it was not the custom to go about barefoot, and all freemen wore
boots or shoes when out of doors. Sandals and slippers were reserved for
indoor use; and to wear them outside, in Greek fashion, was considered
effeminate. Indeed, this was the favourite gibe which the Romans of the old
school cast at those who found the
pallium and
crepidae more comfortable than the
toga and
calceus.
Scipio the elder (
Liv. 29.19,
12), Verres (
Cic.
in Verr. 5.33), Antony (
Cic. Phil. 2.30), Germanicus (
Tac. Ann. 2.59), and Caligula (
Suet. Cal. 52) scandalised the sticklers at
propriety in this way, and the prejudice lingered on even until the age of
Hadrian (
Gel. 13.22,
1).
The wearing of sandals or slippers when going out to supper was, however,
quite a recognised one; for as it was the custom to have one's slippers
taken off by the slave on reclining at the table (
soleas
demere, Plaut.
Trucul. 367;
soleas deponere,
Mart. 3.50,
3),
sandals were much more convenient than boots. Hence the phrase
soleas poscere (Hor.
Sat. 2.8, 77, &c.), “to prepare to take
leave.” Most guests came in a litter, but those who could not afford
this walked in boots and carried their
soleae
under, their arm (Hor.
Epp. 1.13, 15). The general name for
sandals in Latin is
solea, sandalium being a
transliteration which never became naturalised at Rome. [For
CREPIDA see that article.] Of
other varieties the
gallicae are the best known and
were longest in use. The Edict of Diocletian mentions a number of different
kinds for men and women with single or double soles, for travelling or
country wear (
gallicae viriles rusticanae bisoles,
gallicae viriles monosoles, gallicae cursoriae, taurinae muliebres
bisoles and
monosoles, 9.12), which shows
that their use must have been popular and very extended. Of other sorts,
those from Patara and Babylon and the Tyrrhenian (v.
ante) were not peculiarly Roman, but worn all over the
Hellenistic world.
The monuments showing Roman sandals do not differ in any important respect
from the Greek shapes. (Becker-Göll,
Charikles,
3.267, 281;
Gallus,
3.227;--Hermann-Blümner,
Lehrbuch, 181 foll., 196;
Guhl and Koner, p. 225; Iwan Müller,
Handbuch, iv.
pp. 404, 409, 427, 432, 806, 880, 930; Marquardt,
Privatleben, 1886, pp. 322, 595, 705; Baumeister,
Denkmäler, art.
Fussbekleidung;
Daremberg and Saglio,
Dict. d'Antiq., arts.
Blautai,
Crepida;--Blümner,
Technologie, 1.276;
Leben u. Sitten, 1.60;--Büchsenschütz,
Hauptstätte, p. 91.) [
W.C.F.A]
2.
Solea, a shoe for horses or mules. It is a
matter for dispute at what date horses were shod for ordinary use in Europe;
and a further and different question, when horse-shoes, were first attached
by nails. In Greek literature of a date before the Roman conquest there is
no trace of any shoe for animals at all, except in the case of camels, who,
according to Aristotle
[p. 2.686]（
H. A. 2.6 =
p. 499 a), on a campaign had a sort of shoe (
καρβατίνη bound beneath the foot; but his remark, that this
was done because the camel's foot was soft (
σαρκώδης), makes this passage an argument against the existence
of horse-shoes in Greece at that date. It is perhaps hardly necessary to
point out that the Homeric epithet
χαλκόπους (
Il. 13.23), like
χαλκοκρότος in
Aristoph. Kn. 551, merely refers to the
noise of the horses' hoofs, and is no more an argument as to material than
χαλκεόφωνος. Further than this we have
in Xenophon's
de Re Equestri not only the argument of his
silence about shoes, but also the fact that he gives (ch. 4) directions for
the sort of pavement in the stable or stable-yard which would best harden
the hoofs. In the
Anabasis (4.5, 36) he
describes a practice in the Armenian hill-country of binding bags (
σακκία: unless we are to read
σακία, i. e. discs, like small shields) under
the feet of horses and mules; but this was only in the snow, to prevent them
from sinking: some kind of “bog-shoes” is similarly used for
horses to this day in Holland and in parts of Scotland (Fleming,
Horse-shoes, p. 319). Lastly, the evidence of ancient art
points the same way. We have no representation of shoes on horses, though on
the frieze of the Parthenon, for instance, we should expect to see traces of
shoes had they existed, as well as of bridles. It is quite possible that
with all their methods for hardening the hoofs, they may have worn out
quickly on roads: and as a fact historians note that this happened (
Thuc. 7.27;
Diod.
17.94).
In Roman literature we find a very slight mention of shoes for mules: the
ferrea solea left in the mud (Catull.
8.23): the shoeing of Vespasian's mules (Suet.
Vesp. 23): the
silver shoes of Nero's mules (Id.
Ner. 30), and
the golden shoes of Poppaea's (
Plin. Nat.
33.140; cf.
D. C. 62.28). Upon these
passages it must be remarked (1) that all refer to mules, (2) that they are
probably exceptional cases, either for mules with weak or injured feet, or,
as in the last two cases, for ostentation. We can have little doubt also
that these shoes were not nailed, but bound on as will be described below:
Arrian (
in Epict. 3) speaks of
ὑποδημάτια for asses.
The use of shoes or sandals made of hemp (
spartei), bound on injured hoofs, is noticed by Columella (6.12),
Galen (
de Alim. 1.9), and Vegetius (1.26), who gives precise
instructions that in case of tender or injured feet they should be
calceati, the shoes being either iron or hempen and
attached by
lemnisci or
fasciolae. It is clear that these writers are speaking of use
for exceptional cases; and moreover in Columella, 1.73, we find a
recommendation that stables should have oak floors, “nam hoc genus
ligni equorum ungulas ad saxorum instar obdurat,” which implies
that he did not mean the horses to be shod. The same deduction, that shoes
were only for exceptional cases, may be made from their absence in the list
of
ἱππικὰ σκεύη given by Pollux, 10.56.
As regards nailed shoes, though the lines of Tryphiodorus (
Ἰλίου ἅλωσις, 86)
οὐ
μὲν ἐπὶ κνήμῃσιν ἀχαλκέες ἔξεχον ὁπλαί, &c.
scems to show that in his time (? 5th century A.D.) it was customary to shoe
horses, yet it is impossible to say whether he means nailed shoes or
sandals. Beckmann, in the passage which he cites from Leo
(
Tactica, 5.4), is probably right in setting down as the
earliest mention of nailed horseshoes. The words there (describing part of
the cavalry equipment) are
σεληναῖα σιδηρᾶ μετὰ
καρφίων, i. e. “iron horse-shoes with nails.”
That this mention in the 9th century A.D. marks the
earliest use of nailed horse-shoes shaped as they are now, is, we
think, a wrong conclusion. Not only have we the relief from Gaul (see
Baumeister,
Denkm. fig. 2322) of a
carruca drawn by horses with nailed shoes, but also numbers of
ancient horses' shoes, not differing in shape from those now in use, have
been discovered in France, Switzerland, and Germany, and a few in this
country. A description of them with illustration will be found in Fleming
(
op. cit. ch. 3-6). That they are of a high
antiquity there is no doubt, but we think him wrong in making some of them
as old as the time of Julius Caesar. The evidence from position is not so
clear as to necessitate any such belief, and had they been then in use in
Gaul we can hardly doubt that they would have been adopted at least to some
extent in Italy; and in that case, though it is quite possible that there
might be no mention of them in general literature, we should expect it in
Vegetius; and still more we should certainly find a forge at Pompeii. It
would besides be strange that Caesar does not notice them. We should rather
conclude that the Gauls began to nail horse-shoes considerably later than
Caesar's time, perhaps after the date of Vegetius, and that the invention
spread thence to Italy and Greece. Whether Greece had then, as now, the
practice of nailing on iron
plates with merely a
hole in the centre is uncertain: but, inasmuch as it is the Turkish system
now, we should judge that this pattern of shoe was brought into the Morea by
the Turks, and that the true horse-shoe shape is marked by Leo's word
σεληναῖα. The objects figured below
represent what are often called “Roman horseshoes.” They are
found in France and elsewhere: several are in the Museum of
Besançon: fig. 1.
 |
|
Fig. 1.
|
shows one in the British Museum, found at Reignac (Indre et
Loire); another exactly like it
 |
|
Fig. 2.
|
 |
|
Fig. 3.
|
was found in the Thames among Roman relics, and is described in
the
Archaeological Journal, xi.
[p. 2.687]p.
416, as a lamp-stand. Fig. 2 (from Fleming) shows one preserved at
Besançon. Mr. Fleming (ch. 7) thinks that they are slippers or
skids for a wheel [
SUFFLAMEN:
but many, if not all, are ill adapted for that purpose. We think that the
more correct view is to accept them as “horse-sandals,”
attached as represented in fig. 3, but used only exceptionally for injured
or cracked hoofs. This will account for their not being found more
frequently, and also for the fact that they have been discovered close to
ancient nailed horse-shoes. (See also Beckmann,
Hist. of
Inventions, 2.270 ff.; and for still fuller details, Fleming,
Horse-shoes and Horse-shoeing, ch. 1-7.)
[
G.E.M]
