01-06-2007, 11:54 AM
Sorry Dan, I got the wrong end of the stick. But I still don't think it reasonable to compare contemporary artists to non-contemporary ones. Ask an everyday British illustrator to depict a British soldier of only twenty years ago and they will get it wrong without reference materials and research.
I personally think the Columns are fairly unreliable as they're outright propaganda and I question the knowledge of the sculptors, but that doesn't mean they should be written off completely and utterly. I'm sure they still have something useful to say, and that's in the general message that legionaries mostly wore segs, and auxilia mostly wore hamata. But the distinction is black and white as the Columns are not ancient Osprey books to inform the citizenry of what the soldiers wore, but propaganda stories to reinforce the greatness of the Emperors and Rome, and the crucial necessity was that the average person in Rome could identify who did what. This clearly suggests that it was known that legionaries predominantly wore segs.
I am still skeptical that seg repairs in the field were as difficult as many think, and am certain that replacement parts would be available and to hand. Sure, not as easy as hamata, but not a good reason to say hamata was preferred (and I'm not directing this at you, Dan, but it is a regular reason why it is believed hamata would be the preferred choice). Specialists find things easy, and the army was full of specialists as well as being logistically well organised. There is also an assumption that the average soldier only had one set of armour, and although there is no evidence for spares being possessed, there is a reference in the letter of a centurion that he had a spare shield, which he asks his wife to bring to him. For all we know, the men may have had more than one type of body armour for different purposes, as well as more than one type of shield?
I personally think the Columns are fairly unreliable as they're outright propaganda and I question the knowledge of the sculptors, but that doesn't mean they should be written off completely and utterly. I'm sure they still have something useful to say, and that's in the general message that legionaries mostly wore segs, and auxilia mostly wore hamata. But the distinction is black and white as the Columns are not ancient Osprey books to inform the citizenry of what the soldiers wore, but propaganda stories to reinforce the greatness of the Emperors and Rome, and the crucial necessity was that the average person in Rome could identify who did what. This clearly suggests that it was known that legionaries predominantly wore segs.
I am still skeptical that seg repairs in the field were as difficult as many think, and am certain that replacement parts would be available and to hand. Sure, not as easy as hamata, but not a good reason to say hamata was preferred (and I'm not directing this at you, Dan, but it is a regular reason why it is believed hamata would be the preferred choice). Specialists find things easy, and the army was full of specialists as well as being logistically well organised. There is also an assumption that the average soldier only had one set of armour, and although there is no evidence for spares being possessed, there is a reference in the letter of a centurion that he had a spare shield, which he asks his wife to bring to him. For all we know, the men may have had more than one type of body armour for different purposes, as well as more than one type of shield?
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
