Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)

[tlclark]

Travis, please bear with me here (no pun intended :lol: ),

The primaporta is an isolate, it's the only one that looks like it that we know of.

But, can't the same be said of these nude Pius statues ? They both look like they belong to a "heroic" genre rather than the typical triumphal types.

Are these not also isolates ? If they are, then why should leather be perceived as being the dominant form of this armor ?

There must be something more that has pushed you more firmly into the leather camp. Just wondering what it is :?

There is only one statue that has a configuration like the primaporta, that is, the primaporta itself. We have several that show floppy or flexible cuirasses. The very fact that you showed two is proof that they are not an isolate, but a trend, and we have far more than two.

As far as it being the dominant form, I have no real idea, I'm just guessing, but I think that by the Antonine period, the armor is leather.

Two big things make me think that, the lack of side seams, and the torsion of the figures, and the presence of floppy cuirasses like in the images above. I don't think my position has changed all that much.

I think any re-enactor is justified in having a bronze cuirass. They definitely existed. My opinion is that the leather ones also existed. That's as much as I will say with any conviction.

As far as ratios and numbers, I'm just guessing, but hey what else am I going to do? You make your bets and takes your chances, and this is my best guess of what we are seeing in the artwork.

Travis