Trajan´s Column questions?

[Crispvs]

"Still, we see soldiers in partial kit all over the column. Some in lorica without helmets, while building, which seems odd. Would legionnaires really build in armor? Or is it an iconographic device? If so, why exclude the helmets and other features? A lot of this is guesswork, but it may be that the lorica was the only really "iconographic" part of a legionnaires kit, and that that was all that was needed to say "These are legionnaires" but they make sure to include the helmets in the battle scenes."

As someone who spends up to twenty weekends per year dressed in Roman miliatary kit for around eight hours a day, I do not find it surprising or anomalous that soldiers would be shown wearing armour but without helmets when working. I do not get hot in my armour unless it is an extremely hot day. I do get hot wearing my helmet though and normally take it off as soon as I have been dismissed following a field display. Vegetius' comment that soldiers in earlier times wore heavy leather hats so that they would not mind wearing helmets may not be true but does indicate that soldiers in times closer to his own found their helmets uncomfortable.
In battle you would wear your helmet. It exists to protect you in battle and not to wear it would be foolhardy. When doing physical work which did not run the risk of blows to the head I am sure the majority of soldiers preferred to take their helmets off and leave them close at hand. In several of the scenes on Trajan's column where legionaries are shown without helmets, helmets can be seen resting on shields or on poles. In fact the 'carrying handles' to found on many helmets may have more to do with hanging them up than actually carrying them. Soldiers wearing armour and not helmets are not anomalously dressed. They are dressed to hard labour in a combat zone where they might have to take up armed with very little warning but whilst working would wish to remain as cool as they safely could.
This does nothing in my opinion to support the idea that soldiers are shown wearing subarmali without armour. 'Subarmalis', in any case, surely means 'under armour'.

"Could missing belts may indicate that we are not seeing soldiers in full gear, but men in subarmalis?"

Not when you consider that the auxilliaries on the Adamklissi metopes (metope XIV in particular) are depicted wearing mail, which is indicated by the presence of drilled holes to imitate mail rings, a device which became a standard way to represent mail. If we were to argue that these holes indicated nothing more than textile, then a number of the legionaries on other metopes who have to be seen as wearing textile armour along with metal armguards, greaves and helmets, which seems an unlikely combination. It is more of a possibility that if weapons wear carried on baldrics, belts might not necessarily be worn whilst wearing armour. Although most re-enactors use their belts to hold their sword baldrics in place, sculptural evidence overwelmingly show baldrics passing over, rather thanunder belts, indicating that Roman soldiers did not find it necessary to hold their balrdics in place with belts. Would it therefore be necessary to wear the military belt when engaged in combat? After all, if it was not supporting the weapons what battlefield purpose was it performing? A soldier on one of the Mainz column bases also wears mail without a belt but is wearing his helmet and a sword on a baldric. If a soldier was wearing armour he was obviously a soldier. Perhaps he did not need his military belt to indicate his military status all the time.
Still not evidence for the depiction of subarmali.

"When the Column of Trajan matches something they like, they praise it, when it doesn't they condemn it"

I agree. It is far too easy to depend on the column's depiction of fort gates or marching packs because we have little else to draw on for their appearance but to dismiss it when we have better evidence. I have often felt that this approach was fraught with danger for the serious scholar or researcher and often find myself pointing this out to people.

Crispvs