Bronze lorica segmentata?

[Anonymous]

I think the least likely is (a) and the most likely is (b) <p></p><i></i>

[Theodosius the Great]

Quote:</em></strong><hr>(a) A praetorian guardsman wearing a brass or gilded lorica segmentata?<hr><br>
<br>
Flavius, you mean "bronze" not "brass" don't you ? <br>
<br>
I suppose I choose : <span style="font-size:medium;"><strong>(b)</strong></span>.<br>
<br>
Assuming it isn't Mars, it looks like an early Republican legionary with his Italo-Corinthian helmet, greaves, greek-style shield and thursting spear. The armor is very difficult to make out (due to bad preservation or just the quality of the picture taken). If the armor is consistent with the rest of the equipment, then it would have to be a muscled cuirass, right ?<br>
<br>
-Theo <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=theodosiusthegreat>Theodosius the Great</A> at: 3/7/05 10:30 pm<br></i>

[Tarbicus]

I say:<br>
<br>
(e) A praetorian guardsman wearing a bronze or gilded cuirass with fancy shoulder bits.<br>
<br>
...ahem... <p></p><i></i>

[mcbishop]

Ham: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?<br>
Pol: By the mass, and tis like a camel, indeed.<br>
Ham: Methinks it is like a weasel.<br>
Pol: It is backed like a weasel.<br>
Ham: Or like a whale.<br>
Pol: Very like a whale.<br>
<br>
<em>Hamlet</em> Act III Scene 2<br>
<br>
Mike Bishop <p></p><i></i>

[Tarbicus]

Get thee to a nunn'ry. <p></p><i></i>

[Tarbicus]

And just to add more guff:<br>
<br>
<img src="http://www.livius.org/a/1/romanempire/praet_guard.jpg" style="border:0;"/> <img src="http://www.geocities.com/archeobel/praetorian.jpg" style="border:0;"/><br>
<br>
And then this one ....... <br>
<br>
<img src="http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson/AntPiusBW.jpg" style="border:0;"/><br>
<br>
I'll get my habit <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=tarbicus>Tarbicus</A> at: 3/10/05 12:23 pm<br></i>

[Anonymous]

I wanted to add to the series a picture of Stephen Boyd as Messala in the infamous Ben Hur but I'm too lazy..<br>
More seriously I wonder how someone could see a segmentata in that painting.<br>
What I see is a hoplon type shield, an etrusco-corinthian helmet and what seems to be a linen cuirass.<br>
And something that wasn't mentioned: a pike long enough to have the word "sarissa" come to mind.<br>
What if the painting simply represented the equipment of an archaic Roman warrior similar to those that were defeated by the Celts at the Allia?<br>
I tend to look very suspiciously to the early republican legionaries all wearing bronze muscle cuirasses, as it is generally assumed, from that famous relief.<br>
The Greeks imported in Italy all their military gear, from helmets to greaves, to swords, to shields and to metallic muscle cuirasses. It would be very odd indeed if they hadn't imported the ubiquitous linen cuirass as well.. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 3/10/05 2:45 pm<br></i>

[Tarbicus]

Quote:</em></strong><hr> I wanted to add to the series a picture of Stephen Boyd as Messala in the infamous Ben Hur but I'm too lazy.<hr><br>
<br>
Here you go you bone idle so-and-so<br>
<br>
<img src="http://www.americanphoto.co.jp/pages/eiga/HE/Previews/Plans-31983.jpg" style="border:0;"/> <p></p><i></i>

[Theodosius the Great]

Hey, looks good to me.<br>
<br>
What's wrong with it ? <p></p><i></i>

[Uwe Bahr]

The cuirass for me is - although hypothetic - quite o.k. Wrong seems to be way how the paludamentum is attached. IIRC do there exist only depictions with the coat being fixed on the right shoulder by a fibula with one part of the coat being draped across the breast and running over the left shoulder.<br>
<br>
But - worst of all - the helmet ... <p></p><i></i>

[derek forrest]

Graham asked me to post this<br>
Dear People,<br>
<br>
I can't understand the reluctance to accept the use of organic materials as armour. The Roman army was a very composite army, operating in different weather conditions and against different enemies. But especially was an Army which used, in dangerous moments, and in different ages, a lot of different protection adapted to the necessities of the moment.<br>
<br>
The sources are many. They will be collected and published soon in a work I am preparing with Graham Sumner, which will open (I hope) new horizons about the use of armour in different ages and especially the use of all the kinds of armour.<br>
<br>
I do not want demean people. But I think that the learning of Roman military equipment must be attached firstly at the sources, and not relegated only by archaeological evidence. The sources were written by people who saw with their own eyes the roman equipment: so how can we, after an interval of thousands of years, contest such people when the evidence we have is limited to few fragments of a immense world?<br>
<br>
Moreover: we accept without any conditions that Oriental people used for centuries organic armours, Russell Robinson himself, in his Oriental Armour, described the evidence of organic armour. Why then cannot the Romans wear protection in leather (see the significance of the word lorica in Varro, De Lingua Latina), or in linen (see the Caracalla Phalangite - I do not understand the quotation of CIL to contest the reconstruction of Sumner in his recent Osprey book), in horn (see the armour of Domitian described in the sources) etcc..<br>
<br>
The use of a thoracomacus/subarmalis/peristhidion as armour instead of the metallic one is attested by the Anomymus De Re Military in VI century; and do You think the army of the third century was so different? Why the armour of the Constantine Cornuti in the Constantine Arch could not be a leather muscled one, when the contemporary fresco in the Ipogeum of Vibia represents brown leather armour of the same type on the figure of a Roman miles?<br>
<br>
Of course metal armour was used as preference whenever possible but we have to distinguish the different unities, corps, èlite etc..and also in them a lot of people used the more congenial kind of armour for him, or the armour available. Then we have to distinguish among the different ages. The Army of Frontinus is not the army of Vegetius, the army of Titus is not the army of Agricola, etc...<br>
<br>
Do you think that when the enemy attacked, and some infantryman took a helmet of Hedderneim type, the cavalryman arrived to say "No this is the helmet for cavalry, use an another one!"...We have today problems of classification but not the Romans.<br>
<br>
In anycase: I suggest to begin with a new approach to the argument; begin we from the sources (which I will try to concentrate in a complete way and apply to the archaeology in a programmed work) and begin we to accept them, not reject them with modern interpretations that are not applicable to a complete different world.<br>
<br>
About the question of the bronze lorica: I advise to contact Mr Vagalinsky of Archaeologia Bulgarica, the number is Archaeologia Bulgarica I - 1999. It is not expensive and in anycase the magazine is interesting because there is a beautiful cover with a masked helmet from Thracia.<br>
<br>
Best wishes to all the people and I hope really that, with a new approach, we can go deeply into a new and for me a more adherent vision of the Roman world.<br>
<br>
Raffaele D'Amato<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Tarbicus, you made my day! Don't you just love that cute helmet?<br>
It would be great news indeed if Mr Vagalinsky of Archaeologia Bulgarica could show solid evidence of a bronze segmentata. What I find odd is that the only ones found yet are made of iron. And since bronze resists far better than iron the passing of time, I wonder why no bronze segmentata was ever found.<br>
Moreover, a great number of bronze fittings for segmentata --obviously made of iron-- have been found. How come no shoulder piece, or girdle loop made of bronze was ever found?<br>
No one said the ancients did not use organic materials as a protection. A leather piece of lamellar was found at Dura, A leather cheek guard was found assciated with a Celtic helmet, the Sarmatians used armour of hardened leather or horn, the Greeks used the linothorax and also the quilted armour and this last type is still represented on late imperial sculptures.<br>
However, I still do not fathom how Graham Summer saw a praetorian wearing a bronze segmentata in the painting shown above.<br>
As for the "phalangite", it is based, I think, on no evidence at all.<br>
A more likely explanation for the "phalangite" is the introduction about that time of a new type of heavy infantryman fighting with a long spear in close order beside a shield wall, contrary to the previous pilum/gladius tactic which naturally demanded a looser order. <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Hello Antoninus<br>
<br>
I admit that when Dr D'Amato first showed me the picture of the 'Praetorian' wearing bronze lorica segmentata my initial reaction was probably the same as yours.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless when I in turn showed the image to Mike Bishop he took it seriously enough to include a mention of it in his book but like me he wondered at the apparent anachronism of Roman and Greek equipment. However further research on his part revealed that this type of armour could in fact have Hellenistic origins which would explain this.<br>
<br>
I would rather this approach be adopted than to dismiss the idea of bronze lorica segmentata out of hand. After all can we really be sure that no Armour of this type has ever been discovered? For instance the catapult plate at Cremona was originally described as the lid of a legionary pay chest when it was first excavated!<br>
<br>
It is quite possible that examples of this Armour do exist, forgotten in museum stores or even on display labeled incorrectly. The examples of bronze finds from Nova may indeed be parts of lorica segmentata as the excavator believes and as Mike Bishop freely admits he has not seen the examples himself to categorically prove otherwise.<br>
<br>
As for my illustration of a Phalangite, it was in fact based on the description by Dio (Epit., LXXIX) and a contemporary figure on a mosaic from Tunisia which almost matches this description.<br>
<br>
Graham.<br>
<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

I still think it is very unlikely that bronze segmentata existed. Are there any examples of someone with money, such as an officer or centurio, wearing segmentata? If the painting in question is disregarded I can't find any. Most are wearing mail or solid cuirasses. I am thinking that segmentata was only worn by those who couldn't afford anything "better". If this is the case, a person who could afford to have his segmentata made from bronze/brass could afford to get himself some mail or a solid cuirass. I would have thought that one of the reasons for developing the segmentata was that, at the time, iron was too difficult to fashion into solid breastplates - especially if it is mass produced. This isn't true with copper alloys. So unless one can demonstrate that segmentata was "fashionable" for the upper classes to wear I can't imagine anyone making one out of copper alloy. Is there such a thing as "parade" or "ceremonial" segmentata? <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=danielraymondhoward>Daniel Raymond Howard</A> at: 3/12/05 1:47 am<br></i>

[Anonymous]

Hi Graham,<br>
And thank you for the answer. It would be indeed unrealistic to assume that we know everything about ancient armour. The recent sale of the Axel Guttmann collection is there to prove it, with the appearance of a number of Roman helmets of a type itherto unknown. And I am pretty sure that, unfortunately, some unknown pieces are still deeply buried in museums' store rooms or hidden in private collections.<br>
The suggestion that banded armour originated in the Orient is perfectly valid since the famous Pergamon hellenistic relief show what appears to be a manica --and a masked helmet BTW.<br>
We may thus assume the same system was used for body armour. I remember also a statue of a god, I think in Palmyra, wearing a cuirass that seems to be made of three girdle loops although the material of the cuirass --metal or organic- cannot of course be determined.<br>
The pedestal of Trajan's Column also show sets of banded armour that are definitely not roman.<br>
I also know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but well.. I'd rather wait for the appearance of evidence concerning bronze segmentata. As for that painting depicting a praetorian I doubt it is a praetorian since there is a score of sculptural evidence to show what they looked like in parade armour. I am convinced that those reliefs are not a "symbolic" or "conventional" representation and that they show the real thing, give or take a few minor artistic conventions like the smaller cheek guards.<br>
Besides, I don't see why a praetorian, would carry a sarissa..<br>
That character looks like your run of the mill "greek warrior" type as seen by the Romans. Could be Alexander (the sarissa), could be Aeneas.. Could be anyone greek..<br>
As for the phalangite, well, Cassius Dio, a military man, wrote this: "He organized a phalanx, sixteen thousand men, of Macedonians alone, named it Alexander’s phalanx and equipped it with the arms which warriors had used in his day. These were: a helmet of raw oxhide, a three-ply linen breastplate, a bronze shield, long pike, short spear, high boots, sword."<br>
That is puzzling, I admit. But it is risky, I think, to base a reconstruction on a literary description (what kind of rawhide helmet, for instance) and a mosaic.<br>
...Which BTW, I would be very grateful to see posted here, since I don't know the piece.<br>
<br>
<br>
<p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 3/12/05 4:56 pm<br></i>