RomanArmyTalk

Hi John

Quote:why would soldiers always be pictured armed? If this is your criteria, you are ruling out lots of potential evidence for what soldiers looked like.

Quite possible, one such example is the famous Tavern scene in Pompeii which Dan Peterson used as evidence for red tunics. My criteria was a belted tunic plus weapons or shield which I thought was a reasonable choice. It is equally possible that this criteria includes figures who are not soldiers!

Also it is not possible for me to see or read about every piece of Roman artwork ever recorded. Hence my frequent requests for other RAT members to post anything I may have missed.

The only certain soldier in a green tunic is the Guard on the famous Justinian mosaic. Two figures almost certainly soldiers in my opinion are on the Gamzigrad mosaic and like them any other person shown in a green tunic is either a hunter or a charioteer. There was a mention of hunting dress and my logical conclusion was that this could mean a green tunic. Of course not all figures engaged in hunting wear green tunics reds or beige are more common.

My own conclusion which I put in RMD on military clothing colour is a nice tidy one which seemed logical to me. It might be too nice and tidy for many others. It probably applies more to tunics of the early imperial period but basically was on the lines that:

Everyday wear was an un-dyed wool tunic. Un-dyed might mean anything from off white to a reddish brown wool.
Parade Dress was a bleached white tunic. linen or wool.
Battle Dress was a red tunic. For ordinary soldiers this might still be an un-dyed reddish brown wool, with officers having dyed red tunics.
Naval Dress. blue grey tunics are mentioned in literary sources and some figures in ships have then too but others appear in red or red orange which again might just be un-dyed wool.
Hunting dress. Green tunics are sometimes worn by hunters some of whom may or may not be soldiers. Other colours however are equally popular

I have looked at the published textile finds collections from four sites with strong but not completely, military connections. Two in Egypt one in Britain and one in Germany. The statistics basically came up the same for all four. Obviously I am in the process of getting more information before drawing a proper conclusion but so far I can say that for roughly every 10 textiles found, 6 will be undyed, 2 or3 will be dyed red and the remainder will be either blue, green or some other colour. Does this fit in with what I concluded above? I think it does rather well but I welcome other views.

Graham.

Graham.

Graham: Once again, thanks.

John

Quote:And why would soldiers always be pictured armed? If this is your criteria, you are ruling out lots of potential evidence for what soldiers looked like. Why would the boar not be a military symbol?

Indeed, why not? Well, I did not state with absolute certaintty that he was not a soldier, just that I don't think so. I just don't think that on a mosaic you want ambiguous images - if you want to show something to your guests (which is mainly what a mosaic is, a decoration around the house, andd a show-piece at that) you want to be clear. And if you want to depict a soldier, you want people to know he's a soldier.

The discussion becomes completely academic when we try to judge whether a person without arm is a soldier without arms or an unarmed civilian. I guess it comes down to personal preferences, then.

Quote:Why is the assumption made, as you have in this case, that persons pictured doing menial labor are slaves? Why would Roman artists constantly picture slaves and not freemen? Why would they show slaves richly dressed and not as they would have been-in rags? Perhaps this mosaic (Villa Armerina) seeks to depict slaves, but is this the rule to be followed in all mosaics? Are all persons depicted doing menial labor assumed to be slaves, no matter what other features are shown?

Why would slaves be in rags? You obviously do not know the Villa Armerina mosaics, otherwise you'd know that the villa has been attributed to a very high class person, perhaps even an emperor. Slaves did not need to go around in rags, why should they? And slaves to very rich persons could wear very expensive clothing.

Also, who said anything about personss doing manual labour being slaves? Only you, John. The reason why I classed these persons as servants (NOT slaves) is that their tunics are unbelted. Meaning they cannot be soldiers. Nothing was said about slaves.

The problem with interpreting a Roman mosaic is that we have to get inside the Roman mind and out of our own in order to do so. This would take an art historian, which I am not.

None the less, I will give my interpretation.

To begin with, the Roman artist would probably be depicting things from religion and mythology and not everday life. For example, in England the depiction of everday life with all its humor and vulgarity did not become widespread till William Hogarth in the 18th c. See, "The March to Finchley".

The mosaic that contains our subject has Neptune as central, so there is a religious aspect to begin with. We see four figures of nudes, two women and two men. Then we see four depictions of contemporary individuals doing what appears to our eyes to be manual labor. The "four" figures may have something to do with the seasons, but I don't know. However, I question what we are seeing is a depiction of average individuals doing everyday things. I think in each case they are meant to be allegorical figures from Greek and Roman mythology. The artist may have taken his images from everyday occurrences, and this interests me a great deal, because it is what connects my interpretation up. I think in each case the contemporary individuals are meant to show an historical or mythological figure doing some significant "act" out of a story and not a workman doing an everyday thing.

To concentrate on our "soldier" as I will call him, we see him dressed in a greenish tunic with clavii. He also wears a cloak in the fashion of a soldier as on various grave steles. He is carrying two baskets by means of a pole over his shoulders. I do not know how to interpret the significance of this. Perhaps they are meant to show a balancing task, or, justice, but they are not just baskets of stuff as we would think with our modern minds. Nearby, is a boar.The boar is much out of scale to him, so I don't think it is meant to show him herding a pig. The boar, as I understand it, in Roman symbology, means strength or virility or cunning. It was used as a symbol for the Legions. I am not sure what Legion was in Tunisia, or what its symbol was. The boar appears to precede him: Either running from him or perhaps leading the way? In any event, it looks as if the boar has his eyes turned on the soldier.

To me, our soldier is meant to show a figure from a Roman story. The fact that his appearance is contemporary in nature is what helps us, because the artist lifted a contemporary figure, dressed in a contemporary way to show a figure from a Roman story. I do not believe he would use a contemporary figure of low status to depict an important character in a Roman story. A god or an important character would be well dressed. The man is well proportioned, in his prime as soldiers are usually shown. He is dressed well, showing a person of status. The fashion of wearing both the tunic and the sagum are military like in nature. The over sized boar suggests a military connection, not an agrarian connection.

To tell his story, the artist lifts a figure out of everyday life who is strong, well dressed in a military fashion with a military symbol nearby. I think the artist used a soldier to show his story. If we knew more about the story the artist wished to tell, it would help, but I don't.

John

Quote:To begin with, the Roman artist would probably be depicting things from religion and mythology and not everday life. For example, in England the depiction of everday life with all its humor and vulgarity did not become widespread till William Hogarth in the 18th c. See, "The March to Finchley".

No tbeing an art historian nor an ancient Roman myself, I can however tell you that I've seen enough Roman mosaics portraying every day life for myself. So I must unfortunately cut you short there - there's plenty of evidence for everyday life and also of Roman soldiers being Roman soldiers. The Villa Armerina mosaics again, portraying Roman soldiers (in just about every colour tunics) hunting all sorts of animals.

As for the figue we're discussing, I don't know the rest of the mosaic. Yes, the boar ccould be symbolic for something. I'm not opting for the 'pet boar'.

Quote:As for the figue we're discussing, I don't know the rest of the mosaic. Yes, the boar ccould be symbolic for something. I'm not opting for the 'pet boar'.

Graham Sumner posted the link to the full mosaic in this thread.

In that case, no, I don't see anything remotely military in this mosaic. All figures wear a tunic with clavi. All figures are doing an agricultural task (I assume the main theme of this mosaic is fertility), all are accompanied by animals. If you want to see the boar as a military symbol, you must also find explanations for the dog, the lion and the leopard.

Folks, I hate to interrupt, but I would like to point out two things:
1. Depictions of any kind should be used with extreme care for the question of reconstruction. Roman art was not photorealistic. Not at all. Really. Not even a bit.
Roman art was highly conventionalized and is extremely repetitive. Ancient craftsmen were working with model books, which were used over and over again, some perhaps even up to the middle ages, as the stained glass windows in Chartres may suggest. (I don´t want to go into THAT discussion, though, I know there are several theories about how the Chartres windows got the ancient figure compositions). So even if we see a late Roman mosaic it may have hellenistic elements, be it in colour or in composition. The hunting scene we see here is typical for Meleagros depictions / Calydonian Boar hunt, of which we have a wide variety, exemplary, here:



Note that such depictions were normally copied and modified to fit the current needs. So if a hunting scene would be needed to be shown, the craftsman used a familiar scene and just changed the godly nudeness to a secular tunic, the hunter to a carrier, e.g.. The tunic however, must not have necessarily been a depiction of a contemporary garment, but could again have been a copy of a garment from an 250 year old drawing in the model book.

To sum up, without wanting to sound arrogant: The interpretation of this material in regard of tunic colour and clothing style is extremely difficult, and certainly needs some kind of art-historical and classical archaeological methodological and practical experience and knowledge. And even then it is, in regard of the nature of the genesis of ancient art, extremely specualtive, and cannot produce sound proof in any way.

The foundry painter left us an image of such a model book on the foundry plate, which is in now Berlin, see uploaded attachment.


2. In regard of 1. it is sensible to stick for reconstructions to material evidence only. As far as Rome is concerned one might have a point in saying that the republican depictions / southern italian depictions (which are not large in number) do show the Italian reality a bit better, since the hellenistic influence in art was not yet very strong / resp. not yet present. So we might see "realistic" depictions on the statilii / palatine tomb frescoes etc. in regard of clothing colour for that time. The dating of these is difficult, though.

Quote:To sum up, without wanting to sound arrogant: The interpretation of this material in regard of tunic colour and clothing style is extremely difficult, and certainly needs some kind of art-historical and classical archaeological methodological and practical experience and knowledge. And even then it is, in regard of the nature of the genesis of ancient art, extremely specualtive, and cannot produce sound proof in any way

This would be my point, partly. However, it does not follow that this is a "hunting scene". The figure does not seem remotely interested in hunting the boar.

Also, I would not go so far to say that there is no proof in art.

That was a bit unlucky put. But the second part should have made clear what I meant...^^

Quote:So if a hunting scene would be needed to be shown, the craftsman used a familiar scene and just changed the godly nudeness to a secular tunic, the hunter to a carrier, e.g..

It´s about the changing of scenes based on a specific model. That´s pretty much how it seems to have worked. It was meant as an example.


But for reconstructional questions there is no sound proof in art. Even if you find e.g. a green tunic in art, you still don´t know what kind of weave it was, what the exact shade of green it was, whether it was woven of two slightly different green shades, what its exact fit was etc. It´s nothing you could possibly base a reconstruction on. So it´s no sound proof for reconstructions <= I implied that´s what we are talking about.

Quote:Ancient craftsmen were working with model books, which were used over and over again

On what information in ancient sources do you base this presumption ?

M.VIB.M.

I think it is probably because quite a number of pieces of ancient art seem to follow the same compositional arrangements as each other, despite different subject matter, as if a craftsman asked to depict a certain subject then looked in his pattern book for a suitable composition to adapt to the need at hand.

There are a number of examples to strongly suggest this was often the case. The Alexander mosaic in Pompeii is widely believed to be a copy of a famous painting which was looted by Aemilius Paulus after his victory at Pydna and which afterwards hung in a position of prominence in Rome. I believe Pausanius describes the painting (although I do not have a copy to check) and the description seems to match the mosaic well, suggesting that a floor based on this and other well known works of art could be commissioned and produced according to detailed pattern books.

Next I would suggest that the number of famous Greek bronze statues by famous sculptors such as Praxiteles which survive only in Roman copies in marble would suggest that detailed descriptions including scale drawings were available for sculptors to use in making their own copies.

Next I would point out the similarity of Mithraic sculptures from widely differing locations, again strongly arguing in favour of standardised patterns.

The fact that standard compositions had been the way of things for quite some time was demonstrated by the frescoes revealed during the excavation of the Macedonian royal tombs at Vergina. The 'Rape of Persephone' scene could almost have been traced from pictures of other surviving Hellenistic frescoes, which it resembles not only in size but also in the positions and even the angles of the figures, despite the subject matter being different. In the same way, horsemen shown in frescoes from Vergina seem almost exactly the same as horsemen shown on the Alexander mosaic, despite them being separated by over three hundred years.

I am quite sure that someone better versed in ancient art than me could find many more examples than I have cited here, but I think that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that the existence of established pattern books of artistic designs is more likely than not to have been the case.

Crispvs

Crispvs,

I have had problems with the explanation that Roman statues all should have been copied from Greek statues which we do not have anymore.

Personally i think this is not always the case, no matter how you describe any statue, even as an ancient author, it has never been stated on statues; copied by, or copy of... *at least not on the statues i have seen personally.

Of course i adhere to the possibility that much of Roman art may well have been copied and even themed on preceding artworks, but to say of most statues found: was copied from a marble or a bronze from Greece now lost is imho wishful thinking unless there is clear archeaological proof like inscriptions, modelling books which were found et cetera. Even though a lot of statues are obvious copies you cannot state that every statue was, let alone that every form of art depicted is hence not suitable for reconstruction. Colours have been retraced, as well as frescoes depicting colour use, also, colours were found on textile remains.

On a more general note:

To state with definity that certain reconstructions are wrong, or even impossible, because of some theory which has not been proved at all, like some "scholars" seem to constantly have an urge to point out, even in certain magazines well known to all of us, in my opinion is outright impolite and rude to those who venture to reconstruct what they think something MIGHT have looked like.

When did science become arrogant and blatantly disregarding the possibility of the impossible?
When did reconstructions needed to be criticized beyond the realms of founded criticism, or what we like to call, without building criticism (opbouwende kritiek).

One should not say, this is wrong, this cannot be, or even this is nonsense, but one should say, It might have been different, did you consider so and so, would you like to retry it using this and that et cetera........

I am getting a little fed up with people constantly criticizing others on here for what they in their own time, and with hard effort make, produce and try to reconstruct.

Of course not all reconstructions are correct, but i would urge all fellow members to remove the beam from their own eyes before blatantly and arrogantly trying to remove a splinter in someone elses eyes.

M.VIB.M.

Henk,

I did not mean to imply that all Roman statues were copies of Greek originals. That idea would be ludicrous. I merely tried to point out that a number of surviving Roman statues appear to be copies of lost Greek bronze statues which were well known in the ancient world and which we have detailed descriptions of. Sorry if my statement was unclear.

I don't know whether the whole of your post was directed at me or not, but if it was, I should like to point out that at no point did I try to imply that a reconstruction based artistic evidence is automatically wrong. My purpose was to provide some evidence to support what Christian had said about the probability of the existence of pattern books.

Crispvs

Crispvs, i was most definetely not talking about you............ :wink: and you know that well....

I support part of the theories in this thread, but not the way in which some of te posters write it down.....

M.VIB.M.