06-08-2007, 10:13 PM
Quote:As to the armor, I believe there is a spectrum. On the one side you would have a very Hellenistic appearence - most likely Thracian helmets, quilted linen armor, Macedonian pelta type shields - while on the other side you would have a more Republican Roman appearence - Montefortino helmets, lorica hamata, and perhaps Republican scuta.
No Thracian helmets or iconographic evidence of Thracian helmets has been found in a Carthaginian context, IIRC. There is no actual evidence for Hellenistic quilted linen armour in northwest Africa, either, so those would be out. The Romanized equipment would only be for the Liby-Phoenician phalanx which was reequipped with captured Roman equipment.
Quote:The change of shield type would depend on the answer to the spear/pike question. The pike is a two handed weapon and the Cathaginian infantry woudl not have been able to use a scutum type shield if they were using pikes. At any rate, at the start of Hannibal's campaign his Carthaginians would have looked very Hellenistic, after he had been in Italy for a time then his troops would have looked very Roman, and during the times in between the appearence would have been somewhere in between as well I imagine.
It's doubtful that his army adopted Roman styles of equipment much beyond captured arms. The Carthaginian army was thoroughly Hellenistic in appearance probably right down to 146 BC.
Quote:When I mentioned the Celts before I was only talking about swords. The Carthaginians had a number of different sword types to choose from: the Hellenistic xiphos or kopis, the falcata, or Celt-Iberian type sword along the lines of the hispaniensis. It would have depended on where and when the sword was acquired.
Once again, the gladius was probably just used by the reequipped phalangites, and the Celtic styles most probably just by Celtic and Spanish troops.
Quote:I've seen that shield design or one very much like it when I was searching for shield emblems. There are companies who make shield decals for wargaming miniatures who based some of their designs off the shield emblems from Chemtou. The only catch with those is that they might be Numidian rather than Carthaginian. All the designs do have a distinctive look and feel to them though.
Like the Pergamon reliefs, the Chemtou reliefs are clearly displaying captured arms, and so they are almost certainly Carthaginian.
Ruben
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
