SNAPPY SOLDIER TUNIC PLEAT

[tlclark]

John.

Just now looking through my notes and Diana Kleiner's "Roman Sculpture", I found these references.

I am working on pictures now, since I don't have any handy in my image bank at home, but basically, u-shaped pleats occur anywhere we see short tunics, regardless of context, military or civilian.

Specifically, in the frieze of the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces the baker in Rome, outside the Porta Maggiore.

The monument of the Lusius Storax, the figures on the far left in short tunics

In the Alimentia relief from the Trajanic arch at Benevento

Also in the relief depicting the burning of the debt records from the reign of Trajan, now in the Curia in the Roman Forum.

In the Cancelleria relief,

The vicomagistri relief and various other "Freedman" and Genre reliefs.

The portrait of Antinoos as Sylvanus in the Palazzo Massimo in Rome.

On a romanized portrait of Anubis in the round from the Vatican

There are lots really.

Basically, long tunics have vertical pleats, short tunics employ the u or v-shaped pleats.

Now this may just be an artistic convention, so it's hard to tell, but if we are operating on the assumption that these pleats are at all representative of the actual clothing worn, (and that's a big assumption) we should be careful not to look at only military examples, because it might lead to the impression that this is a military feature and not just a feature of the short tunic in general.

I'm not a military expert by any means, so I'm unaware if there are any references to pleats in any of the primary literature, or if there is a specific military reason for the pleats. If there are, then that changes how we look at the material.

I'm not 100% on this, since I don't know the military stuff as well, actually, I'm probably about 60-65% certain, but I think that the u-shaped pleats may just be a natural product of the short tunic, regardless of context.

As far as the Mainz stelae go, I have never seen them in person, but they are done in a provincial style, and I think that makes the folds look more deliberate than they are.

Check out the soldiers from the Pozzuoli Arch in the Berlin Staatliche Museen or the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology. I'm looking at both now in Kleiner's book, figures 194 and 195, page 229. They both have the typical u-shaped pleats, but they are far less rigid. It's hard to tell if they are deliberate, or just an artifact of the natural drape of the short tunic.

I'm inclined to believe the provincial stuff is rendering the pleats in a more typical genre style, which is more common in freedman and plebian art and Rome in the 1st-2nd C., but becomes the prevalent style by the late empire.

Unless someone can point to a specific reason, militarily or in the primary literature, why should we believe that this is anything other than an artifact of the short tunic? That's why I started thinking about stitching as a solution.

Travis