09-15-2009, 02:29 PM
Dear Jho,
thanks for the review of my book, and also for the positive notes you included as well. Criticism is like always constructive, but as you can well guess it is my duty of scholar to defend the positions of the Mediterranean School, especially for the questions related to the conventionalism in Roman Art.
First of all, the book want definitely to be a book on the Roman Army from Marius to Commodus: the book does not deny the evidence of the items offered from the archaeology, and the most part of them are reported in the notes. If I did not publish them, as you correctly noted, it was just because I did not want offer to the readers photos of items seen hundred time in other books, and especially the items from Germany, England and Netherland, that are the most published. But these items are just a part of the Roman military world, not the standard, because the standard did not exist in the Roman military world.
What it is for you exceptional and exotic was not exceptional and exotic for the Romans, and about the regular and normal? What it is the regular and normal? Not for sure the items found in France, Germany, Netherlands and England. They are ultraimportant finds, but a part of millions of finds related to the Roman military equipment, but still to discover or still to publish. The Roman legionary in red tunic and lorica segmentata is a creation of Robinson: well, for sure it existed something like this, but in the middle of thousand different other possibility. Put an army of 70.000 men: how many were dressed like this? And in anycase not like this, because in the reconstruction of Robinson the subarmale was omitted but today we know that it existed. And what it is normal? How many specimens of Lorica Segmentata intact have been found to say that Corbridge was the normal one (????) when any specimen is different from the other? We have very few specimens intact, respect a history of 300 years of use of segmentata....
If you instead speak about "the traditional view of the Roman army" ok but then we are speaking about the "traditional view of the Roman army at the eyes of the modern re-enactors or students or scholars". I am instead speaking of the image of the Roman army that the Romans had in the different provinces.
The rare finds are presented to show infact that artistical convention is a convention of the modern time. But this is the main purpose of the book. The chronological evolution that you consider little analized is done by presenting the items with their dates. From the other side, I consider very difficult to say when a piece of armour was used for the first time and when it was not longer in use, considering that helmets of the 2nd century were still used in the 4th and that now,after the Spanish finds, we can be sure that the Lorica Segmentata was used at least until the beginning of the 4th century (but logically, if you consider that armours of 1400 were still used in 1600).
The approach of the book is not to make a detailed analisis of the chronological passage of the various items. But to indicate that in the arch of time considered the item was used.
When I identify many reliefs as stylized representations of known pieces of military equipment (e.g. Agen-Port helmets) it is because it is clear that they are representations of those pieces. No one can have doubts about the fact that some helmets of the Arc d'Orange are of (so-called) Weisenau Typology. But other helmets, other pieces of equipment, are so clearly represented that or we have in front of us a crazy fantasistic sculptor, or they were part of the reality. And considering that in the same criticised monuments we have items that have been confirmed from archaeology, I do not see why the artist should represent fanciful equipment beside a true one. It is the eternal problem arised by someone about the fanciful in the Roman art, in the representation of the material culture. But also literary sources are speaking, and they confirm art. And then? It is a conjuration of ancient artists and authors to make believe to the future generations that the reality was different or instead, more simply, the ones described and the other represented the reality? If I have to choose amongst the Roman people and the modern scholars in the reconstruction of the Roman world, I have not doubt. But what it is funny is that no one has doubt about Egyptians, Assyrians, etc...in the representation of the reality on artworks. But for the Romans yes.
The patchwork trousers of Crispus (correctly inherited from Lindenschmit, who spoke Latin and Greek - amongst the other languages - as me italian and you German ) are present also on other monuments of the Rhine, but not for all of them. The masked helmet of Marius legionary is confirmed also from the literary source I mentioned in p. 37 which is infact describing a Marius Legionary, and the Sora relief is from the Marius's place of birth. Concidence? Look instead how the Agen-Port helmet published at p. 36 is clearly identical to the original specimens and instead as the bowl of the helmet on Sora monument is with a double rim just surrounding the bowl like in the last typologies of Negau (Giubiasco) of 1st cent. BC.
Portonaccio: I am sorry it is for you a horror, but, first of all, it is not a legionary, because in the Portonaccio the Barbarians are defeated by a cavalry charge, and we know that during the Marcomannic Wars the Generals surrounded them with Cohortes Civium Romanorum Equitatae like bodyguards. The relief of Portonaccio is one of the most detailed representations of such cavalrymen: on the same time, on the same relief, there are masked helmet, helmets with Griffin protomes (identical to that found in the Danish Bogs), and ALL THE SWORDS are identical to actual specimens (s. the book of Miks), the shoes also, etc...You say: the artists became more and more unfamiliar with the actual equipment? Why? On which basis we know that the artists of the Antonine Age were not knowing the actual Roman equipment? Especially if they have to represent these troops and not others? You are correct: they were working copying official paintings of campaigns, as the masters of Trajan columns did, and there were OFFICIAL and TRUE representations of the fighting soldiers. Artists did not become less interested in depicting reality and more interested in expressing the horrors of war, this is a modern concept that you can apply to modern artists, not to ancient artists. They expressed the horror of the wars just simply representing the reality. The armour of Portonaccio is visible also - as I wrote in the book - on the Column of Marcus Aurelius. Beside chain mail armours, scale armours, segmentatae in iron, we have also representations of such a lorica. Artistical convention?
The crest ring is not an enigma, it was used, it is quoted in the sources, in the book also I wrote its name, but how many specimens have been found? The Hamburg helmet has got it, and this is not debated by the archaeologists, and the helmet you quoted is a second example, so why doubts if a helmet of Antonine Age has got it? The piece of equipment in Egypt is not Egyptian, attention, is ROMAN and used by the Romans in Egypt. This is not may be a piece of THE SAME LORICA represented on the Portonaccio, but a piece of a similar lorica. The helmet: the basis of it (bowl) comes from an actual specimen and it fits with the helmets represented in the Marcus Aurelius Column as well as the Arch of Septimius Severus. But again, we are on the field of the discussion about the reality of the Roman monuments, and again we are inside a monument (the Portonaccio Sarchophagus)
Toledo helmet: I reported both the versions. For me it can have strong elements of authenticity, but I cannot put my hand on the fire. The problem instead of the Hamburg helmet is that the most part of the people think such attic helmets like convention. So considering that (for the moment) very little specimens have been found, it is easier to try to consider it a fake.
I am happy anyway that you feel also joy and not only pain in reading my book...The intention which moved me to prepare these 6 mega-books was to give joy to the people loving the Roman military equipment and show new equipment to open the range of the knowledge about this argument.
All the best
Raffaele
thanks for the review of my book, and also for the positive notes you included as well. Criticism is like always constructive, but as you can well guess it is my duty of scholar to defend the positions of the Mediterranean School, especially for the questions related to the conventionalism in Roman Art.
First of all, the book want definitely to be a book on the Roman Army from Marius to Commodus: the book does not deny the evidence of the items offered from the archaeology, and the most part of them are reported in the notes. If I did not publish them, as you correctly noted, it was just because I did not want offer to the readers photos of items seen hundred time in other books, and especially the items from Germany, England and Netherland, that are the most published. But these items are just a part of the Roman military world, not the standard, because the standard did not exist in the Roman military world.
What it is for you exceptional and exotic was not exceptional and exotic for the Romans, and about the regular and normal? What it is the regular and normal? Not for sure the items found in France, Germany, Netherlands and England. They are ultraimportant finds, but a part of millions of finds related to the Roman military equipment, but still to discover or still to publish. The Roman legionary in red tunic and lorica segmentata is a creation of Robinson: well, for sure it existed something like this, but in the middle of thousand different other possibility. Put an army of 70.000 men: how many were dressed like this? And in anycase not like this, because in the reconstruction of Robinson the subarmale was omitted but today we know that it existed. And what it is normal? How many specimens of Lorica Segmentata intact have been found to say that Corbridge was the normal one (????) when any specimen is different from the other? We have very few specimens intact, respect a history of 300 years of use of segmentata....
If you instead speak about "the traditional view of the Roman army" ok but then we are speaking about the "traditional view of the Roman army at the eyes of the modern re-enactors or students or scholars". I am instead speaking of the image of the Roman army that the Romans had in the different provinces.
The rare finds are presented to show infact that artistical convention is a convention of the modern time. But this is the main purpose of the book. The chronological evolution that you consider little analized is done by presenting the items with their dates. From the other side, I consider very difficult to say when a piece of armour was used for the first time and when it was not longer in use, considering that helmets of the 2nd century were still used in the 4th and that now,after the Spanish finds, we can be sure that the Lorica Segmentata was used at least until the beginning of the 4th century (but logically, if you consider that armours of 1400 were still used in 1600).
The approach of the book is not to make a detailed analisis of the chronological passage of the various items. But to indicate that in the arch of time considered the item was used.
When I identify many reliefs as stylized representations of known pieces of military equipment (e.g. Agen-Port helmets) it is because it is clear that they are representations of those pieces. No one can have doubts about the fact that some helmets of the Arc d'Orange are of (so-called) Weisenau Typology. But other helmets, other pieces of equipment, are so clearly represented that or we have in front of us a crazy fantasistic sculptor, or they were part of the reality. And considering that in the same criticised monuments we have items that have been confirmed from archaeology, I do not see why the artist should represent fanciful equipment beside a true one. It is the eternal problem arised by someone about the fanciful in the Roman art, in the representation of the material culture. But also literary sources are speaking, and they confirm art. And then? It is a conjuration of ancient artists and authors to make believe to the future generations that the reality was different or instead, more simply, the ones described and the other represented the reality? If I have to choose amongst the Roman people and the modern scholars in the reconstruction of the Roman world, I have not doubt. But what it is funny is that no one has doubt about Egyptians, Assyrians, etc...in the representation of the reality on artworks. But for the Romans yes.
The patchwork trousers of Crispus (correctly inherited from Lindenschmit, who spoke Latin and Greek - amongst the other languages - as me italian and you German ) are present also on other monuments of the Rhine, but not for all of them. The masked helmet of Marius legionary is confirmed also from the literary source I mentioned in p. 37 which is infact describing a Marius Legionary, and the Sora relief is from the Marius's place of birth. Concidence? Look instead how the Agen-Port helmet published at p. 36 is clearly identical to the original specimens and instead as the bowl of the helmet on Sora monument is with a double rim just surrounding the bowl like in the last typologies of Negau (Giubiasco) of 1st cent. BC.
Portonaccio: I am sorry it is for you a horror, but, first of all, it is not a legionary, because in the Portonaccio the Barbarians are defeated by a cavalry charge, and we know that during the Marcomannic Wars the Generals surrounded them with Cohortes Civium Romanorum Equitatae like bodyguards. The relief of Portonaccio is one of the most detailed representations of such cavalrymen: on the same time, on the same relief, there are masked helmet, helmets with Griffin protomes (identical to that found in the Danish Bogs), and ALL THE SWORDS are identical to actual specimens (s. the book of Miks), the shoes also, etc...You say: the artists became more and more unfamiliar with the actual equipment? Why? On which basis we know that the artists of the Antonine Age were not knowing the actual Roman equipment? Especially if they have to represent these troops and not others? You are correct: they were working copying official paintings of campaigns, as the masters of Trajan columns did, and there were OFFICIAL and TRUE representations of the fighting soldiers. Artists did not become less interested in depicting reality and more interested in expressing the horrors of war, this is a modern concept that you can apply to modern artists, not to ancient artists. They expressed the horror of the wars just simply representing the reality. The armour of Portonaccio is visible also - as I wrote in the book - on the Column of Marcus Aurelius. Beside chain mail armours, scale armours, segmentatae in iron, we have also representations of such a lorica. Artistical convention?
The crest ring is not an enigma, it was used, it is quoted in the sources, in the book also I wrote its name, but how many specimens have been found? The Hamburg helmet has got it, and this is not debated by the archaeologists, and the helmet you quoted is a second example, so why doubts if a helmet of Antonine Age has got it? The piece of equipment in Egypt is not Egyptian, attention, is ROMAN and used by the Romans in Egypt. This is not may be a piece of THE SAME LORICA represented on the Portonaccio, but a piece of a similar lorica. The helmet: the basis of it (bowl) comes from an actual specimen and it fits with the helmets represented in the Marcus Aurelius Column as well as the Arch of Septimius Severus. But again, we are on the field of the discussion about the reality of the Roman monuments, and again we are inside a monument (the Portonaccio Sarchophagus)
Toledo helmet: I reported both the versions. For me it can have strong elements of authenticity, but I cannot put my hand on the fire. The problem instead of the Hamburg helmet is that the most part of the people think such attic helmets like convention. So considering that (for the moment) very little specimens have been found, it is easier to try to consider it a fake.
I am happy anyway that you feel also joy and not only pain in reading my book...The intention which moved me to prepare these 6 mega-books was to give joy to the people loving the Roman military equipment and show new equipment to open the range of the knowledge about this argument.
All the best
Raffaele
