talaria

Byres has drawn these figures with wings at their ankles, sometimes fastened to the leg, and sometimes like those at their shoulders, growing from the flesh—in both which ways the talaria of Mercury and Perseus are represented on ancient monuments. Nothing of this sort could I perceive; it was manifest to me that these were not talaria, but simple buskins with peaked flaps, such as are commonly depicted on vases of the archaic Greek style, and on the legs of Roman Lares in the paintings of Pompeii.