Third century gravestones showing equipment

[jho]

I forgot these two beauties in my list above (from Roman Military Equipment):

Roman Military Equipment

[triarius354]

jho,

Thanks for the pics

As for the gravestone of severus Acceptus (the right one in RME) and his armour. Poor depicition of helmet - in the case of Iulius Aufidius the characteristic 3rd century piece is much more evident, but I wonder if his armour is lammelar. Vertical strips of metal on the torso with pteruges plus byzantine-like leather belts (suspending the armour?) on the chest and shoulders...
Hasn't Speidel published Acceptus gravestone? If it was from Caracalla's parthian campaign than maybe some eastern influence?

Regards,
Juliusz

[triarius354]

jho

Laudes for Cobannus hoard pics

[jho]

I found a picture of the Dura frescoe I was referring to on the internet.

A black and white version can be found

HERE

(interestingly in the context of a discussion of Carolingian Morion type helmets)

A colored version can be found

HERE

In my opinion the helmets are Niederbieber as they show the reinforcing strips of metal, in particular on the officer to the left. Also compare the scale armor of the soldiers and the leather?/bronze? armor of the officer with Iulius Aufidius's armor. There are clear similarities. But the most striking thing about this frescoe is that (as you also remark with respect to Iulius Aufidius) - apart from the helmets - none of these soldiers would look out of place on a Byzantine frescoe hundreds of years later!!

[triarius354]

very likely, I guess that painters/sculptors were having quite a problem with "3/4 front" showing of things. 3rd century helmets are much more recognisable when shown front or side.

I really don't get this classic/hellenistic/byzantine stuff so often shown on soldiers. It wolud be all right for artistis from non-militarized areas, where notion of classic equipment derived from hellenistic traditions, and real soldiers equipment was rarely seen, but artists at Dura as frontier fortress clearly were able to show "real gear", not very classic (like those mailed soldiers with coifs and hexagonal shields from Synagogue), yet still we have those soldiers with muscle cuirassess, in very greek/byzantine equipment

[jho]

Well, the equipment of the soldiers on the Dura frescoe appears "classic" in outline but very "real" in substance. In fact one might speculate whether many supposed depictions of muscled cuirasses actually intend to show short scale shirts similar to those depicted on the frescoe.

Also it would not appear "unreal" to me that an officer would actually wear a muscled cuirass whether made of bronze or leather.

Therefore the reason why this "classic" stuff is depicted may be that it actually is the "real" stuff worn by the soldiers.

However, one must certainly assume a tendency of the artists to make equipment more similar to prestigious hellenistic role models they would be used to from depictions of emperors or gods (see the Palmyrene gods in Dura). I think that it is not correct to believe that soldiers would be offended by impractical or unrealistic artistic renderings of their equipment. To give an example from the more recent past, many WWI memorials in Germany show the soldiers in often very detailed and realistic depictions of contemporary helmets, trousers, boots etc. but at the same time bare chested and brandishing a kite shield and a sword. Nobody protested because everybody was aware of the symbolic message of shield and sword. In the same way it may have been more important to the Romans to show that somebody was a soldier by "lending" appropriate equipment from emperors or gods than to show how he actually would have looked in his equipment.