Pteruges

[tlclark]

The first one is definitely a late hellenistic one and is probably a bronze cuirass.

Look at the shoulder harnesses. They don't have the "jog" seen on most Roman cuirasses which is a hold-over from the linothorax.

You can see more like these here:

http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica ... hens2a.jpg

http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica ... gora3a.jpg

The first is from the Athens museum, the second is lying in the weeds behind the Hephaistion in the Agora, (sigh.)

Notice the pteruges. We have double rows, tongue pteruges (lappets), etc. No decoration, bronze cuirass, round neckline.

Aside from the muscled shape this armor has nothing in common with the musculata.

Notice how the shoulder harnesess are round and have scalloped edges. The harnesses on the musculata are completely different.

(Update: Incidentally, this is exactly the same type of harnesses used by HBO's Rome, which is wrong, wrong, wrong. All the republican examples have square or joggled edges. These harnesses are expressly Greek.)

Now look at your second image of the trophy from Rhodes. It looks like this Roman imperial example, also from the Athens museum.

http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica ... hens2a.jpg

I'm betting that one is hadrianic. Nearly all of the really ornate ones are.

Now compare the style of harnesses and pteruges on the trophy above with this image of a late hellenistic equestrian statue.

http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica ... nsdeta.jpg

It doesn't have the muscled shape, but all other features we associate with the musculata are there.

So we have two styles of pteruges, tongue or straight, in the greek period and the roman examples either emulate the kind from the linothorax or some combination of the two, but it's really much closer related to the linothorax.

The bronze cuirass and the linothorax are very clearly two separate traditions in Greek artifacts in art. In the Roman period, it's all one muddled mess. One wonders what the Greeks thought about all of this. Was this as weird as putting 18th C. Epaulets on WWII fatigues? Maybe. But the Romans obviously didn't care.

The musculata is really an odd duck, isn't it?