Was the leather muscled curiass of the later times sexier?

[Matthew Amt]

The Greeks did not abandon metal armor, nor did the Romans. True, the linothorax--or what we believe to be depictions of the linothorax!--are more common than the identifiable bronze muscled cuirass in Greek Late Archaic and early Classical eras, but metal is still there. Armor of all sorts becomes less common as the armies start to slide from gentry militias to larger professional armies recruited from the lower classes.

The Late Roman era isn't my strong point, but as I understand it there is still plenty of evidence for the continued use of armor (metal!). Have to agree that Roman battle armor is going to be iron or bronze/brass. Any depictions of later emperors with something muscled and flexible is not showing battle armor, but either some sort of ceremonial thing, or an artistic representation of something ceremonial. Probably! But yeah, we've been beating the whole "leather armor" issue to death any number of times...

What the Romans found attractive in battle was shine, color and shine. Brightly painted shields and lots of metal bling--helmets, bosses, body armor, belts, scabbards, etc. I'm not familiar enough with the monumental evidence that Barker is referring to, but what I've seen could be interpreted in any number of ways besides leather. Mail, scale, metal musculata, etc. Or just neo-Hellenistic artistic tradition? (One of our Late Roman art experts is probably going to slap me, now!)

Vale,

Matthew