Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)

[Matt Lukes]

Woah- two big problems with that one: first pteruges aren't proof of musculatae, and don't by themselves suggest anything at all.

True, he could be wearing chain mail.

Or no armor at all :lol:

And after saying that you disagree that it's bad to assume he must be wearing armor, how can you say it back?

Easily, because there's a context to support my assumption - i.e. everyone's wearing armor. But to assume that he is wearing nothing but a subarmalis is much more shaky because AFAIK, there's never been a subarmalis that can be clearly identified in sculpture. We don't know if pteruges were attached to armor or a subarmalis.

So depending on the context, some assumptions are safer than others, IMO.

Okay, maybe it's just me but to assume anything based on the very minimal 'evidence' just seems to me to be a very bad practice. Hell, the reason these guys are known as Praetorians is probably because someone assumed their dress meant they had to be special somehow :lol: I agree it'd be odd that all the others in the sculpture are armored while this one guy isn't, but as I mentioned before, there are possible explanations for it. It's my understanding that all of them are armored differently- so why couldn't one simply be unarmored?

but the fact is that if you look at the size of the musculatae on the other men, the one who's wearing a tunica doesn't have the same size under it.

Okay, good observation. It may suggest he's wearing chain mail. But like someone said earlier, sculpture isn't a photograph, so maybe the artist didn't catch some detail. Who knows...but those pteruges are attached to something Without all the facts, we need to make assumptions to formulate theories. Sometimes there's no choice.

If it's mail, it's not the usual doubled-shoulder type- that detail in itself makes me doubt it's mail. Certainly it's possible that what we see is simply the dreaded 'artistic licence'. One reason, however, that I find the missing of some detail by the sculptor hard to accept though, is the fact that there is so much detail- if it were a crude tombstone, I could see it, but this one has quite striking detail.

The pteruges may be part of a leather garment the man is wearing, they might be the fabric type, so it may be a fabric garment- but I still don't see why they have to be associated with armor. I don't even see why they have to be associated with a subarmalis- is there any reason to believe the under-armor padding always had the pteruges as an integral part of it, or could they have been attached to a separate garment?

This is part of the problem with assumptions based on assumptions- the more levels you go, the more rapidly the liklihood of the last thing being correct drops off. I really don't see why the simplest explanation is so hard to believe- that he's just not wearing any armor...

One more thing- look at the guy's neck- the outer garment droops a fair bit but you don't see any detail of what's under it save for that odd ovoid thing on his throat (just damage?)- wouldn't we expect to see the neckline of any armor underneath?

Matt