07-15-2015, 07:45 PM
Trajan's column: Grist for the mill. There's so many wonderful discussions on RAT that stem from this sculpture. And here's one more:
I was looking at pictures of Trajan's column, specifically at the dolabra in action, and stumbled on something strange in the foreground.
see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolabra#/m...e_drum.jpg
Yes, it's on wikipedia. Ignore the text, the cast is legit.
Feast your eyes on the shields in this little piece. Obviously, we've got a few milites on road clearing duty, and naturally, they take off their helmets and affix them to their magically standing shields just over the shield boss using very strong magnets.
No, wait. That's not it.
Either the shields are laying down, and the soldiers decided to put their helmets on them in a consistent way (always on the side of the shield nearest them), or the shields are standing up and the helmets are hanging... from something.
This last weekend, I decided to test this particular setup of hanging the helmet. I used a regular scutum, and a regular gallic G. The helmets are shown with the cheek pieces splayed, which makes sense if you use the ties on the cheek pieces to tie it to... what? There's nothing there. So I put a pilum behind the shield, leaned the two items against a tent, and tied the cheek piece to the pilum. Perfect! The helmet thus hung exactly as the middle shield: Sideways, between the boss and the top of the shield.
Since all five shields/helmets are depicted in the same manner--helmet hanging on front of shield--this would seem to indicate that at least that contaburnium of guys decided to make the same field modification to their shield, putting some sort of attachment point, or they had lacing or straps extending from the handle to the top of the shield which held the helmets in place.
There was one side effect of this grouping, which was that when in this configuration, no one took my shield, pilum, or helmet as long as the three were together. I'm talking about the average miles who appropriates whatever shield and pilum that happens to be in arm's reach when ad signa is called.
PS: The guy on the far right in the picture is taking out the bathroom trash.
Matt
I was looking at pictures of Trajan's column, specifically at the dolabra in action, and stumbled on something strange in the foreground.
see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolabra#/m...e_drum.jpg
Yes, it's on wikipedia. Ignore the text, the cast is legit.
Feast your eyes on the shields in this little piece. Obviously, we've got a few milites on road clearing duty, and naturally, they take off their helmets and affix them to their magically standing shields just over the shield boss using very strong magnets.
No, wait. That's not it.
Either the shields are laying down, and the soldiers decided to put their helmets on them in a consistent way (always on the side of the shield nearest them), or the shields are standing up and the helmets are hanging... from something.
This last weekend, I decided to test this particular setup of hanging the helmet. I used a regular scutum, and a regular gallic G. The helmets are shown with the cheek pieces splayed, which makes sense if you use the ties on the cheek pieces to tie it to... what? There's nothing there. So I put a pilum behind the shield, leaned the two items against a tent, and tied the cheek piece to the pilum. Perfect! The helmet thus hung exactly as the middle shield: Sideways, between the boss and the top of the shield.
Since all five shields/helmets are depicted in the same manner--helmet hanging on front of shield--this would seem to indicate that at least that contaburnium of guys decided to make the same field modification to their shield, putting some sort of attachment point, or they had lacing or straps extending from the handle to the top of the shield which held the helmets in place.
There was one side effect of this grouping, which was that when in this configuration, no one took my shield, pilum, or helmet as long as the three were together. I'm talking about the average miles who appropriates whatever shield and pilum that happens to be in arm's reach when ad signa is called.
PS: The guy on the far right in the picture is taking out the bathroom trash.
Matt
