08-31-2011, 02:33 AM
Exactly - and notice the ring-buckle belts, and that circular scabbard chape on the cavalryman's spatha in the second image - very 3rd century!
EDIT: Incidentally, this might explain why so little later Roman body armour turns up in the archeological record. Other forms - mail, scale and segmentata - are made of relatively small bits of metal, easily lost, scattered or discarded in repair. Musculata, formed of big chunks of metal, would have had both a higher scrap value and be more easily recyclable... Archeology itself, in this case, might distort our idea of what the late Roman army was actually wearing!
EDIT: Incidentally, this might explain why so little later Roman body armour turns up in the archeological record. Other forms - mail, scale and segmentata - are made of relatively small bits of metal, easily lost, scattered or discarded in repair. Musculata, formed of big chunks of metal, would have had both a higher scrap value and be more easily recyclable... Archeology itself, in this case, might distort our idea of what the late Roman army was actually wearing!
Nathan Ross
