Roman Leather Lamellae Scales from Karanis, Egypt

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The one from Vegetius - I don't have the latin text and only an abridged version I found online.

Thanks,
Evan

[Longovicium]

I have already provided the references, Evan, a few posts back before VV discussed it. :whistle:

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Although I missed your post (sorry) I still don't have that particular reference in the abridge online version.

[Longovicium]

I don't have the online version. I use Milner's translation which is where the references come from. Are you talking about the John Clarke 1767 translation? If so, you are doing yourself a disservice relying on that! I would seriously recommend getting Milner's which even if it has flaws is still superior to the online version (if that is the one you are referring to?)!

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Yeah I only have Clarke's which is A. Lousy and B. Abridged. I'd use the Latin text but don't know where to find it, and I don't have the money to spend on Milner.

[Renatus]

It was my understanding that DRB was 5th century while Amianus was 4th.

Ammianus is certainly 4th century; he was on Julian's Persian expedition and is thought to have written his history in the 390s. For the dating of the DRB, see E. A. Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952, 1-2, and Alan Cameron, 'The Date of the Anonymus De Rebus Bellicis' in M. W. C. Hassall & R. I. Ireland (eds.), De Rebus Bellicis, Oxford: BAR International Series 63, 1979, 1-10. Thompson suggests that the work was written in the period 366-375; Cameron narrows this to c. 368/9.

You need to show that "clibanus" was used to denote armour before "clibanarius" was used to describe armoured cavalry. Otherwise the latter cannot have been derived from the former.

I do not "need" to show this, although it would, of course, be nice if I could. The use of clivanus/clibanus as a term for armour is extremely rare in literature but it obviously existed and there is nothing to say that it did not have a history in military parlance and army equipment lists long before the literary authors became aware of it. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, to quote the well-worn commonplace. Clibanarius itself is not exactly common. Your approach, I suggest, puts the cart before the horse. The natural progression, it would seem, is for a piece of equipment to exist first and then to give its name to its user, often with the suffix -arius added, e.g., sagittarius, lanciarius, etc. So, it does not seem to me to be entirely unreasonable to propose that clivanus/clibanus, meaning 'cuirass', existed first, unrecorded in the limited amount of material that has come down to us, and was followed by clibanarius, literally 'cuirassier', not necessarily very long afterwards.

The 'ovenman' theory seems to originate in 1942 (R. M. Rattenbury, 'An Ancient Armoured Force', The Classical Review 56 (1942), 113-116 - "baking-tin men", 114). It would be nice to have evidence of the idea earlier, preferably 1600 years earlier.

[Renatus]

I'd use the Latin text but don't know where to find it

Try this:

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vegetius.html

[Dan Howard]

It was my understanding that DRB was 5th century while Amianus was 4th.

Clibanarius itself is not exactly common. Your approach, I suggest, puts the cart before the horse. The natural progression, it would seem, is for a piece of equipment to exist first and then to give its name to its user, often with the suffix -arius added, e.g., sagittarius, lanciarius, etc. So, it does not seem to me to be entirely unreasonable to propose that clivanus/clibanus, meaning 'cuirass', existed first, unrecorded in the limited amount of material that has come down to us, and was followed by clibanarius, literally 'cuirassier', not necessarily very long afterwards..

So why suddenly start using the word for "oven" to refer to armour? They had several perfectly servicable words that had been used for centuries. I can't find a single example of the Greek or Latin version of the word ever being used in a military context before this time.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Because in the East you would cook like an oven in the armor? That's what I have always seen as the explanation.

[Renatus]

So why suddenly start using the word for "oven" to refer to armour?

There is a possible explanation, although it is the reverse of your reasoning. Clivanus/clibanus does not derive from clibanarius but the other way round. It goes like this: a type of cuirass developed that in appearance or effect was considered to be like an oven and so the word clivanus was coined for it. Roman cavalry of the heaviest sort adapted that cuirass and, therefore, came to be known as clibanarii. The point is that they were not so-named because they were 'oven-men' but because they were 'cuirassiers'. It is exactly the same situation as that regarding cuirassiers in modern parlance; they are so-called because they wear a form of body armour, comprising metal front- and back-plates, called a 'cuirass', not because that armour is made of leather.

[Urselius]

It would be useful to know what a Roman camp oven looked like, for comparison.

[Dan Howard]

The Greek klibanos was just a clay dome. You build the fire underneath and spread the dough over the surface. It doesn't cook loaves, it cooks flat-bread.

[Urselius]

Presumably something more elaborate was used to bake hard-tack biscuit - buccellum?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Presumably something more elaborate was used to bake hard-tack biscuit - buccellum?

It's quite obvious our understanding of Bucellarii is a complete misconception. The process of properly cooking and serving this biscuit was so elaborate that they had to hire and train small armies to do it. A single biscuit took 1000 men to prepare and serve, and anything less resulted in their entire restaurant staff being strung up for the vultures.

On a more serious note, again... Clivanus = Oven. Several kilos of shiny metal armor in the sun = Oven. This is the correlation I have always seen.

[Urselius]

"Made from earthenware, bronze, or iron, the clibanus, often preheated, was used to cook not only bread but also meat. Literary and archaeological evidence from places like Cosa, Pompeii, and Rome show that the clibanus was round or domed-shaped and wider at the bottom than at the top."

Ancient Food Technology - Page 368
Robert Irvin Curtis - 2001

Not a big leap of imagination from a bronze or iron box to a cuirass of some sort. Though it does suggest plate rather than scale or mail.

A corrupt official used a bathhouse oven to bake Belisarius' buccellum for his Vandal expedition. The biscuit was only partly baked and led to the (probably ergotic) poisoning of many soldiers.