RomanArmyTalk

Good to hear that, Paul. Again, thank you and everyone else for the impressions.

Well, I will probably get my copy next week !

I wonder if I have the strength this time to do this (I have never had enough willpower so far):

I try to read the book page by page without taking any glimpses of the content beforehand. It would be exciting not to know what will turn out on the next page. Has anyone ever tried this with a book like this before :wink: ? (I know it is much easier to do with a book / novel without any pics & diagrams)...

My copy arrived yesterday and I am still unsure about it.
Without question it is a great book just because of the many pictures I have never seen elsewhere before alone, but still, I find a lot of his conclusions rather ...unusual.
Since I certainly haven't got the required in depth knowledge I am rather looking forward to the discussions which undoubtfully will develop here shortly.

Can't wait to hear what some of you lot think of all this leather business.. hock:

Cheers

S.P.

Quote:Can't wait to hear what some of you lot think of all this leather business

I think it comes from animal hides. lol:

Taking the plunge on a first review of this major work……

Overall approach

The approach is to take a holistic view of all the contemporary evidence - literary, archaeological, sculpture, and pictorial. The scholarship is immense- drawing on sources and finds that were certainly new to me. In many ways, the book looks to update Robinson, and certainly to challenge some of the key parts of that text.

It would be fair to say that while Bishop and Coulston take a very high level of probability and rigour before drawing a conclusion, D’Amato takes a view on the most likely position.

The illustrations are lavish- and the quality of the book for the price is outstanding. It’s a book that, for my money is worth it for this alone. Plus there are items here that you will find nowhere else- including objects that have disappeared from public view. It is also footnoted and cross referenced to illustrations/ literary sources etc- with a source book that is exhaustive. This allows the reader to review all the comments and (ultimately) make your own mind up.

Personally, I would not have included illustrations of items such as the Toledo helmet (even though it is flagged as of doubtful authenticity). I would also have cut back on some of the assertions- e.g. that the traditional weapon of the Britons were clubs (stele of Catavignus of Cohors III Britannorum, Cuneo Museum, fig 233).

Specific topics

I pulled out a few areas where I am sure RAT readers will be very interested….

-Lorica segmentata

-Leather segmentata- The prime evidence here has always been sculptural- e.g. Trajan’s column or the Portonaccio sarcophagus. The argument against has always been that there was no archeological evidence. However, D’Amato quotes the leather displayed from Qasr Ibrim, which the British Museum also classify as a possible body armour ( http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/s ... rentPage=1 ) . For what its worth, I started off extremely sceptical about the possibility of leather segmentata. By the end, I certainly believed that there is a case to be made, but not 100% convinced. But could all those contemporary Roman sculptors, acting independently in different places, all be wrong?

-Leather edged lorica segmentata–The main evidence here is sculptural evidence such as the Great Trajanic Frieze. D’Amato argues that the lames of the segmentata are leather edged. My question is that given the existence of brass edged segmentata pieces (e.g. Kalkriese) is brass/ bronze edging more likely? It would be good to see a reconstruction to see if leather actually works as an edging here or whether it is quickly worn away. My view- not convinced.

-Bronze lorica segmentata– These are new finds from Novae (fig 301), with photographs. Completely new to me, and would be a startling appearance. Possible pictorial evidence from Nero’s Domus Aurea.

-Lorica musculata
D’Amato argues that bronze lorica musculata existed but were rare and that leather musculata with metal appliqués e.g. a chest gorgoneion existed. I found the evidence compelling, and have reconstructed a leather musculata with metal appliqué gorgoneion. It works.

-Cavalry sports helmets
D’Amato argues that the concept of a “parade helmet” is a purely 20th century concept and that facemasks were worn in combat, e.g. as shown by the Genialis stele at Cirencester. I was convinced, separate tests on peripheral vision loss with face mask wearers show that it would be practicable, especially in a large mass, with a startling psychological impact on those standing against the rider.

- Insignia
D’Amato argues that the distinguishing mark of a unit were shields and crests, with one of the crucial pieces of evidence being Caesar at the battle of the Sambre. Certainly, a practical solution as shields are highly visibIe from the front, crests from the rear (tunic colour is barely noticeable).

-Conclusion

Its an important and heavyweight book, and a must have for any Roman army enthusiast. It is excellent value, and has objects that are simply not available elsewhere. Given the challenging and controversial conclusions, I’m not sure I would recommend it for the complete beginner, but for everyone else, very much recommended.

Just a comment on the face mask issue, I would have thought that the mask that showed evidence of recieving repeated stabs to the eye holes would have been compelling evidence of use in combat. But there you go. Looking forward to this one!

Thanks for the review Cab!

I received my copy yesterday and must admit that I am writing this without having completed more than a first scan of the book. Adding to Caballo's review I must say that I have extremely mixed feelings about this book.

To start with the positive: it is a treasure trove of finds and reliefs hitherto unknown (at least to me). It may make the reenactment world much more interesting with an even larger variety of equipment. Bronze segmentatas and gilded bone squamae were all new to me. I have also never before seen the leather "armour" from Egypt, which to me, however, at first glance looks more like the leather body protection used by charioteers than real body armour.

On the other hand, the book is definitely not a book on the Roman Army from Marius to Commodus as its title would suggest. It is a very important statement in the ongoing debate on the reliability of artistic depictions of Roman military equipment and on the use of leather or other non metallic body armour by the Roman army but not a fair summary of the evidence we have on the appearance of the Roman army in this period and should not be marketed as such. The effect of the books focus on the aforementioned issues is two-fold:

First of all it expands on the exceptional and exotic while disregarding the regular and normal. Anybody looking for basic information on the appearance of the Roman army during this period will be ill-served by this book because he will simply not find much of the finds and depictions which form the basis of the "traditional" view of the Roman army. For us who have seen all of the "classic" books on this topic this is actually a benefit because it would be quite boring to see the 116th picture of the Corbridge hoard or the Mainz bases but for the general public it will limit the value of the book as an overview of the period.

Secondly and more importantly, the author's intention to present "rare" finds and to establish the use of equipment hitherto believed to be pure artistic convention means that the wealth of evidence presented is structured only in the most basic way and there appears to be no in depth analysis of spatial and temporal differences and developments in equipment. For example there was a considerable development in terms of equipment from the Flavian to the Antonine period. This has even been termed the "Antonine revolution". This development is lost where photos and reconstructions show individual exotic pieces (such as many fanciful "parade" helmets) rather than pieces more typical for the large number of finds made with respect to each period. There also appears to be little discussion of these issues in the text.

However, the most important reservation I have is about the reconstruction drawings. I do not have as strong feelings about the "leather" debate as many other people here have. We know that most or all of the peoples who particularly influenced Roman military equipment such as the Etruscans, Celts, Spanish and the Greek made extensive use of non-metallic body armour and also helmets and therefore it is only reasonable to assume that the Romans will have done so too. Archaeological evidence is naturally scance but e.g. it is fairly clear both from finds (Mannheim type helmets) and from reliefs (Osuna, Domitius A. altar) that early models of Roman helmets may have had textile or leather cheek pieces. Therefore I find it completely reasonable to reconstruct Caelius' armour and other similar pieces which resemble Greek tube and yoke cuirasses (fka linothorax) which are know to have been non-metallic as non-metallic although it is just as likely that they may been mail.

However, I find the author's use of other sculptural evidence neither reasonable nor coherent. On the one hand he correctly identifies many reliefs as stylized representations of known pieces of military equipment (e.g. Agen-Port helmets) on the other hand he takes representations at face value which - in my opinion - can easily be identified as similar stylizations. In my opinion the reasonable approach to sculptural evidence should be: If it resembles a known piece of equipment, it should be presumed to depict such piece of equipment, if it does not (such as the enigmatic crest rings on Trajan's column), we are open to speculate that something may existed which we have not yet found.

The author's approach, however, appears to be that we should take sculptural evidence at face value as long as we cannot establish it to be incorrect. On that basis he forces poor Caius Valerius Crispus back into his leather "patchwork trousers" (inherited from Lindenschmit) although they can easily be identified as the clumsy representation of Pteryges and has Marius' mule wear a masked Negau helmet when the relief can just as well be interpreted as a stylized Port type helmet (if you look closely, there is a vertical line through the "mask" which divides it into two cheek pieces of normal type and the "scroll" on the helmet can be identified as the normal "eyebrow" or "eye" motif on this type of helmet).

The essence of the author's approach (and to me the pure HORROR) is the poor legionary from the Portonaccio sarcophagus. The relief itself is a very typical example of the way in which the depiction of military equipment became more fantastic during the Antonine period. This can easily be explained by the fact that the artists became more and more unfamiliar with the actual equipment. They were working at the best from official paintings of campaigns and at the worst simply copying Trajan's column. At the same time artists became less interested in depicting reality and more interested in expressing the horrors of war. With this background, the relief can easily be explained as a legionary in normal metal segmentata with a Weisenau helmet (indicated by the scroll) and a traditional apron (degenerated into the piece of cloth somehow fitted through the belt). All of this does not necessarily mean that this equipment was still in use in this period but may have been copied from other monuments.

The crest ring is also represented on both columns and remains an enigma (although the Niedermönter helmet does have such a ring). I see three possible explanations: (a) a degenerated depiction of a crest knob, (b) a degenerated depiction of the circular feathered helmet decoration which is shown on the Trajanic triumphal frieze and the Cumae reliefs and may have been particular to the guard in Rome or © the ring may have started as an attachment device for a metal crest on Trajan's column and may have been copied from that column afterwards. It will be interesting to see how J.C.N. Coulston in his forthcoming "All the Emperor's Men: Roman Soldiers and Barbarians on Trajan's Column".

What does the author make of this? He clads the legionary in a leather segmentata which is supposedly based on the find from Egypt but looks more like a mix of the relief and the find and has him wear on his head what looks like a bronze age night pot with leather cheek pieces. Whereas the assumption that this relief would show leather rather than metal may still be justified by the - to me remote - resemblance with the Egyptian piece of equipment, the helmet appears to be completely arbitrary and also incoherent with the author's approach on other sculptural evidence as it NEITHER resembles the relief NOR any known piece of Roman equipment.

Finally, in the wealth of "exotic" pieces presented, we also find dear friends from past debates such as the Toledo helmet and Gansser's controversial reconstructions from "Das Leder und seine Verarbeitung im römischen Legionslager Vindonissa". At least with respect to the Toledo helmet, the objections to its genuineness are mentioned, on the leather finds I will have to read more carefully. To many this may appear annoying but I believe that it is useful and productive to review positions even on such widely discussed matters every now and then. The author also has depicts other equipment which either is doubtful (the unprovenanced Hamburg helmet is so far removed both in technique and form from any other known Roman helmet and so close to the Victorian idea of the Roman helmet that would be inclined to contact the fraud department if it were on sale on ebay) or limited relevance (at least one "helmet" appears to be a fragment from a statue).

In summary, I have very rarely felt so much joy and pain in reading a book on this topic before, and, although I disagree with most of the author's conclusions, you cannot enter the debate if you do not read it.

Dear Jho,
thanks for the review of my book, and also for the positive notes you included as well. Criticism is like always constructive, but as you can well guess it is my duty of scholar to defend the positions of the Mediterranean School, especially for the questions related to the conventionalism in Roman Art.

First of all, the book want definitely to be a book on the Roman Army from Marius to Commodus: the book does not deny the evidence of the items offered from the archaeology, and the most part of them are reported in the notes. If I did not publish them, as you correctly noted, it was just because I did not want offer to the readers photos of items seen hundred time in other books, and especially the items from Germany, England and Netherland, that are the most published. But these items are just a part of the Roman military world, not the standard, because the standard did not exist in the Roman military world.

What it is for you exceptional and exotic was not exceptional and exotic for the Romans, and about the regular and normal? What it is the regular and normal? Not for sure the items found in France, Germany, Netherlands and England. They are ultraimportant finds, but a part of millions of finds related to the Roman military equipment, but still to discover or still to publish. The Roman legionary in red tunic and lorica segmentata is a creation of Robinson: well, for sure it existed something like this, but in the middle of thousand different other possibility. Put an army of 70.000 men: how many were dressed like this? And in anycase not like this, because in the reconstruction of Robinson the subarmale was omitted but today we know that it existed. And what it is normal? How many specimens of Lorica Segmentata intact have been found to say that Corbridge was the normal one (????) when any specimen is different from the other? We have very few specimens intact, respect a history of 300 years of use of segmentata....

If you instead speak about "the traditional view of the Roman army" ok but then we are speaking about the "traditional view of the Roman army at the eyes of the modern re-enactors or students or scholars". I am instead speaking of the image of the Roman army that the Romans had in the different provinces.

The rare finds are presented to show infact that artistical convention is a convention of the modern time. But this is the main purpose of the book. The chronological evolution that you consider little analized is done by presenting the items with their dates. From the other side, I consider very difficult to say when a piece of armour was used for the first time and when it was not longer in use, considering that helmets of the 2nd century were still used in the 4th and that now,after the Spanish finds, we can be sure that the Lorica Segmentata was used at least until the beginning of the 4th century (but logically, if you consider that armours of 1400 were still used in 1600).

The approach of the book is not to make a detailed analisis of the chronological passage of the various items. But to indicate that in the arch of time considered the item was used.

When I identify many reliefs as stylized representations of known pieces of military equipment (e.g. Agen-Port helmets) it is because it is clear that they are representations of those pieces. No one can have doubts about the fact that some helmets of the Arc d'Orange are of (so-called) Weisenau Typology. But other helmets, other pieces of equipment, are so clearly represented that or we have in front of us a crazy fantasistic sculptor, or they were part of the reality. And considering that in the same criticised monuments we have items that have been confirmed from archaeology, I do not see why the artist should represent fanciful equipment beside a true one. It is the eternal problem arised by someone about the fanciful in the Roman art, in the representation of the material culture. But also literary sources are speaking, and they confirm art. And then? It is a conjuration of ancient artists and authors to make believe to the future generations that the reality was different or instead, more simply, the ones described and the other represented the reality? If I have to choose amongst the Roman people and the modern scholars in the reconstruction of the Roman world, I have not doubt. But what it is funny is that no one has doubt about Egyptians, Assyrians, etc...in the representation of the reality on artworks. But for the Romans yes.

The patchwork trousers of Crispus (correctly inherited from Lindenschmit, who spoke Latin and Greek - amongst the other languages - as me italian and you German ) are present also on other monuments of the Rhine, but not for all of them. The masked helmet of Marius legionary is confirmed also from the literary source I mentioned in p. 37 which is infact describing a Marius Legionary, and the Sora relief is from the Marius's place of birth. Concidence? Look instead how the Agen-Port helmet published at p. 36 is clearly identical to the original specimens and instead as the bowl of the helmet on Sora monument is with a double rim just surrounding the bowl like in the last typologies of Negau (Giubiasco) of 1st cent. BC.

Portonaccio: I am sorry it is for you a horror, but, first of all, it is not a legionary, because in the Portonaccio the Barbarians are defeated by a cavalry charge, and we know that during the Marcomannic Wars the Generals surrounded them with Cohortes Civium Romanorum Equitatae like bodyguards. The relief of Portonaccio is one of the most detailed representations of such cavalrymen: on the same time, on the same relief, there are masked helmet, helmets with Griffin protomes (identical to that found in the Danish Bogs), and ALL THE SWORDS are identical to actual specimens (s. the book of Miks), the shoes also, etc...You say: the artists became more and more unfamiliar with the actual equipment? Why? On which basis we know that the artists of the Antonine Age were not knowing the actual Roman equipment? Especially if they have to represent these troops and not others? You are correct: they were working copying official paintings of campaigns, as the masters of Trajan columns did, and there were OFFICIAL and TRUE representations of the fighting soldiers. Artists did not become less interested in depicting reality and more interested in expressing the horrors of war, this is a modern concept that you can apply to modern artists, not to ancient artists. They expressed the horror of the wars just simply representing the reality. The armour of Portonaccio is visible also - as I wrote in the book - on the Column of Marcus Aurelius. Beside chain mail armours, scale armours, segmentatae in iron, we have also representations of such a lorica. Artistical convention?

The crest ring is not an enigma, it was used, it is quoted in the sources, in the book also I wrote its name, but how many specimens have been found? The Hamburg helmet has got it, and this is not debated by the archaeologists, and the helmet you quoted is a second example, so why doubts if a helmet of Antonine Age has got it? The piece of equipment in Egypt is not Egyptian, attention, is ROMAN and used by the Romans in Egypt. This is not may be a piece of THE SAME LORICA represented on the Portonaccio, but a piece of a similar lorica. The helmet: the basis of it (bowl) comes from an actual specimen and it fits with the helmets represented in the Marcus Aurelius Column as well as the Arch of Septimius Severus. But again, we are on the field of the discussion about the reality of the Roman monuments, and again we are inside a monument (the Portonaccio Sarchophagus)

Toledo helmet: I reported both the versions. For me it can have strong elements of authenticity, but I cannot put my hand on the fire. The problem instead of the Hamburg helmet is that the most part of the people think such attic helmets like convention. So considering that (for the moment) very little specimens have been found, it is easier to try to consider it a fake.

I am happy anyway that you feel also joy and not only pain in reading my book...The intention which moved me to prepare these 6 mega-books was to give joy to the people loving the Roman military equipment and show new equipment to open the range of the knowledge about this argument.

All the best

Raffaele

Quote:...The intention which moved me to prepare these 6 mega-books was ...

I don't want to break the flow of the discussion, so please forgive me, but aren't they supposed to be 3 books, not 6?

Dear Mr. D'Amato,

Whow! I would never have believed it possible to pick up a book on one day and have a debate with the author the next. I sincerely thank you and RAT for this opportunity.

I can agree on much of what you say in your post and in fact upon re-reading it should have made clearer in my original post that your book caused me MUCH more joy than pain.

I will concede to you that our views on the Roman army have in the past been dominated too much by finds from France, Germany, Netherlands and England and that it is possible, and indeed likely, that the appearance of soldiers may have been different in other places and indeed even within the same area or unit. I will also concede to you that the actual finds we have constitute only a tiny fraction of the total amount of equipment in use at any point of time and that the specimen they represent will be much biased towards metallic equipment because this is simply more prone to survive.

Therefore any reconstruction of the appearance of the army as a whole will have to be based on certain assumptions.

My assumption is that equipment will have certainly been diverse but only within certain limits. To illustrate this point, I will make reference to helmets because many of these can be checked in the helmet database and because you have not argued for extensive use of non-metallic helmets (assuming that you have not found a specimen of the Amendola reinforced Phrygian cap in any obscure museum!).

No two Roman helmets are exactly the same. On the other hand we can discern different typologies of helmets (which you set out in your book) which share certain characteristics. When we look at these groups of helmets we find that helmets sharing the same characteristics are actually spread all over the Roman empire: We know of Weisenau helmets from find spots in from France, Germany, Netherlands and England but also from the Danube, Caucasus, and Israel. We also find pseudoattic cavalry helmets France, Germany, Netherlands and England but also on the Danube and in Syria. More importantly we find that with very few exceptions (such as the Autun helmet) ALL helmet finds can be assigned to an established type of helmet (although the exact limits between different types may be subject to discussion). In fact, over time there appears to be strong tendency to ever more uniformity if we compare Nieberbieber and Heddernheim type helmet finds from Dura Europos, Sivac, North Africa and Germany. What is most surprising is that even the flamboyant so-called parade helmets fall into subtypes with defined characteristics which again are very similar all over the Roman world.

To me these similarities make it safe to assume that we have a pretty good grasp of what the Romans at any given time would have considered a decent military helmet. There was considerable leeway with respect to individual embellishment but the general outline was very consistent. Therefore, although we may make new finds which may constitute new subtypes (such as the Weisenau-Guttmann type which was virtually unknown prior to the publication of the collection) it is rather unlikely that we discover completely new types of helmet (except maybe individual officers' pieces) which cannot be assigned to a new category.

In summary, I would conclude that although the finds we have constitute only a small specimen, that specimen appears to be fairly representative of what was used and lost. If one agrees with that conclusion, the item worn by your reconstruction of the Portonaccio soldier (my apologies for misidentifying him as a legionary) is just too far off from any helmet known from finds to have been used during this period to be accepted as a likely reconstruction and it is far more likely to have been inspired by a regular Weisenau type helmet.

I am aware that the argument made above will have less force with respect to body armor as there are fewer finds and use of non-metallic forms of body armor which have not survived may have been more extensive. But also in this case I would apply the rule that, if the artistic depiction resembles a type of equipment which is established by actual finds to have been actually used, it appears more reasonable to identify it as such and assume artistic license in any discrepancies than to assume that it is a realistic depiction of an unknown type of equipment. Based on that I see no reason to identify the Portonaccio soldier as a representation of a leather lorica. I leave it to more experienced reenactors to debate whether such a piece of armour - opening in the front and therefore presenting the weakest part to the enemy (whereas other types of armor clearly attempt to avoid unreinforced front openings) - would make practical sense.

I conclude by reiterating that this is one of the most fascinating and thought provoking books published on this topic. You cannot be praised enough for the work you put into it and I look forward to continuing the debate after actually having read it from front to back.

Quote:

MARCENTIUS:jxytxgxh Wrote:...The intention which moved me to prepare these 6 mega-books was ...

I don't want to break the flow of the discussion, so please forgive me, but aren't they supposed to be 3 books, not 6?

Dear friend,
the original project provided 3 books about Roman classical age 753 BC-565 AD and now are in discussion also other 3 books about the Roman Army in Middle Age (Byzantium)
Considering that for each book I can supply the same amount of inedite images and information the final project will be 6 volumes
Thanks for your interest
Raffaele

Dear friend,
thanks for your reply and for your compliments. I am very happy that you enjoyed the book in general.
I agree with You: any reconstruction of the appearance of the army as a whole will have to be based on certain assumptions. The Roman army was not a standard one: there were elements of standardization, as the kind of gear mentioned by You, but never a uniform appearance.
About helmets, I have to disappoint you by saying that for sure leather helmets were in use, not only because it is clearly mentioned by sources, but also because of the pieces of equipment found in Vindonissa (p. 111) compared with the scupture beside, and also because the protection of the leather, as proofed by the helmets made in leather in the Bronze Age Sardinia, is very effective. The Middle Age armies are full of references to leather helmets, and also in Richborough at least one of the pseudo-Attic Theodosian helmet was in leather with metallic fittings. Leather helmets are clearly remembered for the Roman soldiers in Justinian Age, etc...
Look at the Amendola relief, which introduces a further typology (the Phrygian) that the Romans used until the XII century (Byzantium). The detail is astonishing, and the man has got on the legs also a greave identical to the Kunzing specimen! Artistical convention? No, then also the Phrygian cap should be true and the detail shows even the fastening system...
About metallic helmets you exactly underline that no two Roman helmets are exactly the same! There are similar tipologies which, as you correctly said, share certain characteristics, and spread all over the Empire, but still there are too little for centuries and centuries of Roman military history. How many Roman helmets have been found in all the world (I mean also those in private collection)? 10.000 ? If they are so, we do not have even the helmets for a big Roman army of one Roman emperor! We speak about a history of millions of soldiers...Moreover, all the helmets found in archaeology have been represented from the Roman artists. So why the other helmets, represented beside them , in the same scenes, are a fanciful invention of the artist?

Yes we have a pretty good grasp of what the Romans at any given time would have used, but we do not know how many and which they considered a decent military helmet. So, I do not think that it is unlikely that we will discover completely new types of helmet (look at p. 186) or better that we will just discover the helmets already under our eyes in the Roman art.

The reconstruction of the Portonaccio helmet is based upon a bowl of private collection helmet, and it is just filled with the details offered by the sculpture.

About the lorica, there are - at least for me - clear evidence of its composition in leather. Such lorica is worn by all the cavalrymen, and the representation of the leather is evident, especially if you compare it with the man on the Marcus Column having the same armour.

Any way it is a pleasure debate with you and also that my book has been so appreciated although constructive differences of thinking

All the best

Raffaele

Quote:because the protection of the leather, as proofed by the helmets made in leather in the Bronze Age Sardinia, is very effective. The Middle Age armies are full of references to leather helmets, and also in Richborough at least one of the pseudo-Attic Theodosian helmet was in leather with metallic fittings. Leather helmets are clearly remembered for the Roman soldiers in Justinian Age, etc...

First of all, let me say that I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of your book. However, from the reviews that I have so far read I have to take issue with the existence of leather armor, helmets and loricae. I have not seen the archeological evidence that you cite, and I eagerly wait to see it, but it is dangerous to make any statement concerning what the romans might of done based upon what was done in other periods of time. Just because something was believed to be very effective in the middle ages does not necessarily imply that the romans thought likewise.

Oh and one more question. On the subject of leather edged steel/iron segmentata, with respect to the Corbridge horde, where is the evidence for this? I would think that some evidence of the presence of either stitching or of glue, yet I am aware of neither.

Dear Mr. D'Amato,

Thank you for your further reply.

I believe that we will continue to disagree on the degree of trust to be placed in artistic depictions.

To me the metal finds we have are consistent all over the Empire to a degree which would exclude the possibility of widely different designs even if artists chose to depict them. They may have done so for many reasons cited above. Also I have no problem with assuming that artists would be prepared to mix "realistic" and "fantastic (i.e. normally stylized rather than completely inventend) which you appear to find unlikely. To illustrate this point: Many World War I memorials (and also art from the Third Reich) in Germany show German soldiers in photorealistic Stahlhelm, trouser, boots but with naked chests and wielding swords and kite shields. Neither the artists nor the audience had a problem with this as the "shield" in particular conveys an allegorical message which could not be conveyed by depicting a rifle.

However the foregoing argument would not exclude that designs known to have been made in non-metallic materials such as the tube-and-yoke (fka linothorax) or designs known to have existed but not found in metal (such as the depictions you identify as thoracomachoi) were made in other materials. Neither would it exclude that a design known to have been executed in metal could also have been executed in leather or other non-metallic materials. However, on this point I would be very cautious because, not denying the defensive quality of leather, metal and leather are different kinds of material and therefore a design for a metal piece of armour may not make sense for a non-metallic piece of armour. Based on this assumption, it is not unprobable that musculatae and also the "jerkins" depicted on Trajan' column may have been executed in metal AND in leather (although on Trajan's column it would be interesting to review further whether the jerkins without incisions denoting mail are evenly spread over the picture or limited to the background which could imply that they were simply a consequence of the artists' laziness). Your reconstruction of the leather patchwork leggings and segmentata on the other hand appear problematic to me under that premise. To make your segmentata work at all, you had to add a leather "background" which is not clearly shown on the relief. Actually the relief would appear to show the individual pieces of the armour more or less unconnected to each other. Assuming that the background is correct, why would a suit of armour have been designed which adds another layer of strips on top of that first piece of armour and has unprotected fastenings on the front (whereas metal armour particularly enhanced protection at the fastening point by shoulder flaps, later metal breast plates and the overlap in the joints of the segmentata). Why would all joints of the armour be connected with buttons which surely will be awkward to open and close on leather of any reasonable thickness? The tube-and-yoke (fka linothorax) design with its shoulder flaps (which we know to have been widely used by the Romans) provides a simple and workable solution for semi-rigid non-metallic armour, the thoracomachos/jerkin design (which we know to have been widely used by the Romans) provides a simple and workable solution for "soft" non-metallic armour. Any alternative design or design variant wil lhave to measured against the simplicity and effectiveness of those designs. The segmentata design appears at best overdesigned (i.e. not simple) and at worst unworkable for this type of material, not even mentioning your "loin cloth" threaded through the armour. Therefore it appears much less likely to me that this design would have been executed in leather in any way but in particular not in the way you show (however, given my luck, some RATer will probably reconstruct it and find out that it is superior to any other form of armour).

However, you may still be able to convince me of your position if you can actually propose a workable leather reconstruction of the Amendola cap/helmet. Just in case somebody is unclear to what helmet we are referring, here is a link:

[url:2r0fkogu]http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sarcofago_amendola.jpg[/url]

Look at the guy with the reinforced smurf cap.

On the issue of leather helmets, as said, contrary to many other RATers I am perfectly prepared to accept that there may have been leather armour and even helmets in use in the Roman army at certain periods, in fact, this is even likely. An often overlooked piece of evidence in this regard are the stone models for Hellenistic helmets and cheek pieces found in Egypt. They are highly decorated which appears to make sense only if they were used to shrink leather (rather than beat bronze sheet).

I would be very interested in a picture of the bowl you used for the reconstruction of the Portonaccio helmet. May I ask whether it would be possible to post it here?

Just started reading and the first pages are very promising. A book I was really looking for. Anyway, I also like the discussion on here, and hope to add something soon. Good you joined here, Raffaele! I always like that part of RAT very good, that when you ask something about a book by Bishop, Sumner, Cowan, Campbell, and much others, you probably get a reply from the author, too.