02-18-2005, 02:22 PM
That "barbarian" armour on TC's pedestal was posted here a while ago.<br>
I personally think it's simply banded armour made of metal. The shoulder pieces, unlike the segmentata do not seem to be articulated although also made with strips of metal.<br>
Another suggestion, posted here too, was that it is a brigantine, i.e; a suit of armour covered up with cloth or leather. In this case the underlying armour could have been made of lamellar.<br>
As far as leather is concerned it was certainly used as a protection. Cuirbouilli is pretty tough and generally speaking, properly treated leather is still widely used for shoe soles. That speaks enough of the material's reistance.<br>
The argument according to which marines would not wear metallic armour for fear of drowing does not hold water --if I may say so-- if we are to judge by later naval battles like Lepanto, where most soldiers wore the half cuirass --and sometimes more-- and a helmet.<br>
Leather lamellar armour was found at Dura and the ancient writers tell us of sarmatian armour made of leather scales or even horses' hooves, although interpretations differ on that one.<br>
One of my personal ideas to explain the strange scarcity of roman muscled cuirass and their total absence for the imperial era in the archaeological record is that the more common ones may have been made of cuirbouilli, covered with a thin foil of silvered or gilded bronze.<br>
Cuirass comes from the french word "cuir", which means leather..<br>
Naturally emperors, generals and such wore much more expensive pieces, entirely made of metal and heavily gilded or silvered. But those were scarce and they disappeared long ago.<br>
Finally, I think that people in Rome knew basically as much as we do about how soldiers were dressed; maybe a bit less, but no more than that.<br>
Goods at that time traveled far and wide, and so did soldiers. Actually moving centurions back and forth from the frontier to Rome and then back to the frontier was one of the main characteristics of the roman imperial armies. That is why I doubt very much the civilians were that ignorant of the soldiers attire. Like today they did not know all the intricate details of course. Who, besides a soldier, is able for instance to decipher all the symbolic language written on a modern military dress? The stripes and the little colored labels?<br>
So the official sculptures was certainly, in a way, more symbolic than realistic, but as the comparison between TC and the archaeological record shows, they were pretty close to the real thing. Close enough, anyways for the civilians to recognize their soldiers. Much like we can recognize soldiers in the little Playmobil characters. <p></p><i></i>
I personally think it's simply banded armour made of metal. The shoulder pieces, unlike the segmentata do not seem to be articulated although also made with strips of metal.<br>
Another suggestion, posted here too, was that it is a brigantine, i.e; a suit of armour covered up with cloth or leather. In this case the underlying armour could have been made of lamellar.<br>
As far as leather is concerned it was certainly used as a protection. Cuirbouilli is pretty tough and generally speaking, properly treated leather is still widely used for shoe soles. That speaks enough of the material's reistance.<br>
The argument according to which marines would not wear metallic armour for fear of drowing does not hold water --if I may say so-- if we are to judge by later naval battles like Lepanto, where most soldiers wore the half cuirass --and sometimes more-- and a helmet.<br>
Leather lamellar armour was found at Dura and the ancient writers tell us of sarmatian armour made of leather scales or even horses' hooves, although interpretations differ on that one.<br>
One of my personal ideas to explain the strange scarcity of roman muscled cuirass and their total absence for the imperial era in the archaeological record is that the more common ones may have been made of cuirbouilli, covered with a thin foil of silvered or gilded bronze.<br>
Cuirass comes from the french word "cuir", which means leather..<br>
Naturally emperors, generals and such wore much more expensive pieces, entirely made of metal and heavily gilded or silvered. But those were scarce and they disappeared long ago.<br>
Finally, I think that people in Rome knew basically as much as we do about how soldiers were dressed; maybe a bit less, but no more than that.<br>
Goods at that time traveled far and wide, and so did soldiers. Actually moving centurions back and forth from the frontier to Rome and then back to the frontier was one of the main characteristics of the roman imperial armies. That is why I doubt very much the civilians were that ignorant of the soldiers attire. Like today they did not know all the intricate details of course. Who, besides a soldier, is able for instance to decipher all the symbolic language written on a modern military dress? The stripes and the little colored labels?<br>
So the official sculptures was certainly, in a way, more symbolic than realistic, but as the comparison between TC and the archaeological record shows, they were pretty close to the real thing. Close enough, anyways for the civilians to recognize their soldiers. Much like we can recognize soldiers in the little Playmobil characters. <p></p><i></i>
