09-26-2005, 07:07 PM
Dsrob, sorry but I have to come to Aitor's defence 
When talking about armour padding at Budapest, Prof. Ubl mentioned an early Byzantine book on strategy written by an anonymous, probably in the time of Justinian I.
This is NOT the Strategikon, but another text edited [and translated] by G.T. Dennis:
George T. Dennis (Ed. and Transl.), 1985, Three Byzantine Military Treatises, Washington.
I cite from chapter 16 ("armament" = peri hopliseos):
"Armor for the head, breastplates, and shin guards should be heavy enough to ward off injury nut not so heavy as to be burdensome and wear down the strength of the soldiers before they get into action. These should provide protection not only because of their material strength but because of their design and their smoothness, which should cause missiles to glance off and fall to the ground. There should also be a space between the armor and the body.
IT (the armor) SHOULD NOT BE WORN DIRECTLY OVER ORDINARY CLOTHING, AS SOME DO TO KEEP DOWN THE WEIGHT OF THE ARMOR, BUT OVER A GARMENT AT LEAST A FINGER THICK."
[all' epi himation ouk elatton daktylou to pachos echontohn]
[note: a 'daktylos' should be about 2 cm]
"There are two reasons for this. Where it touches the body the hard metal may not chafe but may fit and lie comfortably upon the body. In addition, it (the armor) helps to prevent the enemy missiles from hitting the flesh because of the iron, the design, and the smoothness, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THE METAL IS KEPT AWAY FROM THE FLESH."
[... here come a few words about spears and infantry tactics, and how the first, second and last row should be given the best armor...]
"The rest of the troops may be provided with coats of mail [zabais], breastplates [thoraxi - should this really be translated with 'breastplates' ???], and head coverings fashioned of felt or leather [kai perikephalaias tais ek pilou kai byrsaes syntetheiménais]."
(this should start another discussion about armour caps :wink: )
"SO THAT THE ROUGH MATERIAL DOES NOT CHAFE THE SKIN, THEY SHOULD WEAR PADDED GARMENTS [peristedidia = lit. 'cheast-wrappers'] UNDER THEM, AS WE RECOMMEND [above] FOR IRON BREASTPLATES AND OTHER ITEMS. The thickness of the cloth also makes it more difficult for missiles to penetrate, or at least to penetrate deeply, into the body."
Ok, so what we are talking about, the peristedidion mentioned here, should be a subarmalis with a density of about 2 cm, which is worn OVER ordinary clothing.
It is hard to tell how relevant these early Byzantine writings were for earlier periods, but we once again have a case of "everything was better in the past" (= "nowadays the lazy soldiery doe not wear peristetidia because they hate carrying heavy stuff"), which sounds much like Vegetius.
So, the anonymous on strategy is likely to be relevant not only for the late late Roman age, but also for previous periods.
(the passage on how to cross a river e.g. is stuffed with allusions to the times of Trajan, Alexander and others).
Now comes the advocatus diaboli et Aitoris et Aurelii Floriani:
IF Roman soldiers had a subarmalis in the 'better' periods before the late late Roman age, and IF a subarmalis should be worn OVER the tunic (late Roman reencators would hate to snafu their beautiful tunics by wearing them directly under a rusty coat of mail),
...then why should we see quilted tunics on the abovementioned cavalry relief but not a subarmalis ??? Normally you would expect the subarmalis to be over the tunic, not the other way around.
Furthermore, just look at the density of the material ! It looks very thick. Now woolen tunics could be quite heavy, but a tunic of this density (and quilted!) would probably make a subarmalis downright superfluous.
And since the riders do wear long sleeved tunics, the strange quilted vests are most likely indeed peristedidia.
"TRUE" (as Aitor calls it !)
Darn, I have to make a 2 cm fat and heavy subarmalis over winter - combined with the Christmas chocolates this might explode my segmentata in spring
hock:
When talking about armour padding at Budapest, Prof. Ubl mentioned an early Byzantine book on strategy written by an anonymous, probably in the time of Justinian I.
This is NOT the Strategikon, but another text edited [and translated] by G.T. Dennis:
George T. Dennis (Ed. and Transl.), 1985, Three Byzantine Military Treatises, Washington.
I cite from chapter 16 ("armament" = peri hopliseos):
"Armor for the head, breastplates, and shin guards should be heavy enough to ward off injury nut not so heavy as to be burdensome and wear down the strength of the soldiers before they get into action. These should provide protection not only because of their material strength but because of their design and their smoothness, which should cause missiles to glance off and fall to the ground. There should also be a space between the armor and the body.
IT (the armor) SHOULD NOT BE WORN DIRECTLY OVER ORDINARY CLOTHING, AS SOME DO TO KEEP DOWN THE WEIGHT OF THE ARMOR, BUT OVER A GARMENT AT LEAST A FINGER THICK."
[all' epi himation ouk elatton daktylou to pachos echontohn]
[note: a 'daktylos' should be about 2 cm]
"There are two reasons for this. Where it touches the body the hard metal may not chafe but may fit and lie comfortably upon the body. In addition, it (the armor) helps to prevent the enemy missiles from hitting the flesh because of the iron, the design, and the smoothness, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THE METAL IS KEPT AWAY FROM THE FLESH."
[... here come a few words about spears and infantry tactics, and how the first, second and last row should be given the best armor...]
"The rest of the troops may be provided with coats of mail [zabais], breastplates [thoraxi - should this really be translated with 'breastplates' ???], and head coverings fashioned of felt or leather [kai perikephalaias tais ek pilou kai byrsaes syntetheiménais]."
(this should start another discussion about armour caps :wink: )
"SO THAT THE ROUGH MATERIAL DOES NOT CHAFE THE SKIN, THEY SHOULD WEAR PADDED GARMENTS [peristedidia = lit. 'cheast-wrappers'] UNDER THEM, AS WE RECOMMEND [above] FOR IRON BREASTPLATES AND OTHER ITEMS. The thickness of the cloth also makes it more difficult for missiles to penetrate, or at least to penetrate deeply, into the body."
Ok, so what we are talking about, the peristedidion mentioned here, should be a subarmalis with a density of about 2 cm, which is worn OVER ordinary clothing.
It is hard to tell how relevant these early Byzantine writings were for earlier periods, but we once again have a case of "everything was better in the past" (= "nowadays the lazy soldiery doe not wear peristetidia because they hate carrying heavy stuff"), which sounds much like Vegetius.
So, the anonymous on strategy is likely to be relevant not only for the late late Roman age, but also for previous periods.
(the passage on how to cross a river e.g. is stuffed with allusions to the times of Trajan, Alexander and others).
Now comes the advocatus diaboli et Aitoris et Aurelii Floriani:
IF Roman soldiers had a subarmalis in the 'better' periods before the late late Roman age, and IF a subarmalis should be worn OVER the tunic (late Roman reencators would hate to snafu their beautiful tunics by wearing them directly under a rusty coat of mail),
...then why should we see quilted tunics on the abovementioned cavalry relief but not a subarmalis ??? Normally you would expect the subarmalis to be over the tunic, not the other way around.
Furthermore, just look at the density of the material ! It looks very thick. Now woolen tunics could be quite heavy, but a tunic of this density (and quilted!) would probably make a subarmalis downright superfluous.
And since the riders do wear long sleeved tunics, the strange quilted vests are most likely indeed peristedidia.
"TRUE" (as Aitor calls it
!)Darn, I have to make a 2 cm fat and heavy subarmalis over winter - combined with the Christmas chocolates this might explode my segmentata in spring
hock:
Florian Himmler (not related!)
