Making Pteruges (or at least trying to make Pteruges!)

[AntonivsMarivsCongianocvs]

there aren't a lot of pteryges in reliefs with segmentata

That does make sense though, as I have found out from making Pteruges, they must have been expensive.

Even with a modern sewing machine, making over 100 Pteruges, each cut from strips of felt, then wrapped with linen and sewn with trim and then adding fringe to the end of each (the ancients would have wound each piece of fringe by hand) wow! That is an awful lot of work, very time consuming… which would make them expensive.

To have Pteruges on your subs, and to have them look like the ancient sculptures (not like Hollywood) would have cost a great deal. I think they were a bit of a status symbol… perhaps only the upper class, wealthier officers, Evocatus (Evocatii or veterans) with years of service could afford them.

I think anyone could have worn them but… not everyone could have afforded them.

That logic is at least consistent with the sculptural evidence… we always see layers upon layers of Pteruges on a statue of an Emperor or General, we sometimes see them on the grave stones of veterans (whose families had to have been wealthy to have purchased the grave stone reliefs with full body portraits) but, we don’t see them on nearly any of the soldiers on Trajan’s column.