Leather Cuirass

[Magnus]

Can you not read? As I said in that very post you quoted, if an emperor was depicted nude, then he was most surely idealized.

I read what you said...can you quote me some text or "law" that says unless an emperor is nude that they are NOT being idealized? Or is this just your own guidelines?

We have actual examples of metal muscled armour, and the depictions of the muscled cuirasses being worn by emperors in sculptural art is not at all over the top when compared to those.

I've seen them! And they're not as detailed as those sculptures are! Hell, you could give an anatomy class on some of them...whereas the breast plates found aren't nearly as detailed, or as clearly defined as those sculptures.

Why are you even going on about this? This has nothing to do with representations of emperors wearing muscled cuirasses.

Yes, actually it does. It brings up a valid point that the artists contracted to make those statues are going to make them as muscular as possible, regardless of what their armour was made out of. That's why you see their musculature flowing beyond where their regular armour would be. Thus, they are being idealized, because their is no way they looked like that in real life. Same reason celebrities go through hours of make up and spend thousands on their clothing. They want to look their best to the public. And most emperors were post-humously made into deities anyway. I don't see why you can't understand this concept, that statuary of emperors goes beyond most normal human physiology. Thus, because that much artistic license was applied in the simple human form, how can anyone use them as accurate referances, without some tongue in cheek????

So how much and of which of those would you need to accept leather cuirasses? Two artistic and an archaeological source? One artistic source and a written source? Drawing thresholds for acceptibility is silly since if we operated under such criteria, as I said before, we would have to throw out a whole bunch of ambiguous or limited evidence.

It's not so much me as what the general Historical community agrees upon. Or everyone on this forum...call it a majority vote. You can have as many theories as you want..some stronger than others. Doesn't mean you have to throw it out, but be darn careful what you put forward. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence...a term people like to use today...but the Romans or Greeks didn't have photon torpedoes either. Point is that there is a lot more evidence for them using materials other than leather for musculata, in all records. Until something earth shattering comes along and says otherwise, you can make up any theory you want.

What would make me happy is people not throwing something so stupid into the limelight without something more than "bent" cuirasses to back it up with, as shown in art.

What I'm saying is that if we didn't have literary sources on the phalanx, one could doubt its existence at all. The same goes for leather muscled armour- if there are few or no explicit mentions of leather muscled armour, yet a few artistic sources, that is not reason to dismiss it. Besides, armour is so often referred to in such ambiguous fashion (in Greek, thorax can refer to many different styles of armour, for instance) in ancient sources that it is no surprise that we don't have sources specifically referring to leather muscled armour (how many sources actually refer to lorica hamata, again?).

Exactly! We'd have no idea about the phalanx without a cross reference in the literary record!!! Thank you! So you know what? It probably wouldn't get brought up much, and no-one could say hardly anything about it! Your issues is that you seem to think that the bendy musculata IS without a doubt leather, instead of artistic license! But you have no proof of that. Whereas we have known finds of musculata in metal!

I never said without a doubt.

THEN I can also prove without a doubt that linen was used extensively in antiquity by both greek and roman militaries as a form of armour. We know they used linen. We know they wore pteryges. Gee...1 + 1 = 2.

I said I can prove that linen was used in Greek and Roman military armour, not ptergyes. Get your facts straight.

But you can deal with higher probability vs less, and in the case of the pteryges, it's much higher! In this particular thread, it's less to non-existant

And no one is saying it is anything other than less probable, so what are you getting worked up about?

I already told you...in my last post I showed you where I disagreed with you from the get go...after that it's anyone's game. You disagreed with what I said, I did the same. So I can ask you in the same breath...what exactly are you getting worked up about? Oh yes...my "bizarre" standards...well, I hope I've explained them in terms you can now understand.

Linen when it's not wet and in multiple layers is NOT flexible. That's why what you are seeing in your statuary is ART! A distorted reflection of life...and can't be used soley as a source!

What do these two things have in common at all? I'm not following your logic.

My point is that you can't bend a layered linen cuirass! But in those sculptures, we see the cuirass bending, right? My point is that hardened armour, or painted armour if it's leather, or formed, can't bend! If it does, you're going to ruin it...the paint will crack, and the leather will crease. Then you're left with a piece of crap for armour. Thus, any bending we see in the statues are artistic license, and NOT meant as a direct imitiation of life!

Because you seem to think that if we don't have many different sources from literature, art, and the archaeological record about an item, that there is no evidence for it at all.

All you have is speculation! You have nothing else, because you simply cannot prove that the artists making those statues didn't bend their torsoes to show anything but a flexible material for the musculata! You simply cannot do this. Without another source to corroborate any theory, you have nothing! Just guesswork. It's not like saying the lorica segmentata was never worn by centurions either, because we have no grave steles of the centurionate wearing them. But there is a lot more reason to think that they did, than what exists for leather musculata.

We have evidence, but as I think everyone can agree, it is simply limited in number, ambiguous, and hard to interpret. It is still evidence, though.

What evidence!?!?!? There is nothing there! I've already told you that there is no way for you to prove the artist's intent! There are too many holes in yours or anyone's theory that those musculata are supposed to be leather! Don't hide behind ambiguity and difficult interpretations...you simply have no firm ground with which to make such theories plausible.

I didn't get whipped up about the art, I responded to a ridiculous generalization in which you dismissed an entire field of study. It was a legitimate response to what was a condescending offhand comment.

First, get off your art history high-horse. Second, I wasn't generalizing, I was specifically speaking about the statue linked in this thread. But thanks for completely and totally misinterpreting what I'm saying. In fact, I went on to say this about art history:

"First, I am not dismissing art history. It definately has it's worth. But that value can only get you so far, before you're going to need a seperate source of information to back up your claims."

So you're entirely offended by what you've mispercieved in what I said, and now you're crusading against me for it. You took something I didn't even imply, or say and blew it right out of proportion. I went on to say that there are extreme limitations when using only one source, especially when it's artistic. Do you think otherwise? Because that's the impression that I get from you. That art is the end-all source because it's so accurate on how it imitates real life, especially grecko-roman.

Then you started arguing against me saying that I was presenting this piece as evidence for Roman leather musculata, when I never posted anything about that at all.

Well, apparently you can't read either, because my comments about the leather musculata originally were to the general thread readership. As I just previously mentioned, they were not in anyway directed at you. But again, you took the quest and here we are.