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Demise of the Cingulum
#1
Piecing together an impression for 200AD, a thought occurred to me ...

Did leather pteruges generally replace the cingulum? The dating looks about right, with the cingulum dropping out of use in the second half of the 2nd century, and pteruges worn with segmentata and hamata coming in at about that time. More than that, is the change related to the adoption of trouser-wearing (also picked up en masse in the latter half of the 2nd century).

If trouser-wearing invited the demise of the cingulum, than perhaps one of its main uses really was to protect a legionary's modesty and keep his very short tunic down and his privates out of view of everyone around the camp-fire!!
Paul Elliott

Legions in Crisis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/17815...d_i=468294

Charting the Third Century military crisis - with a focus on the change in weapons and tactics.
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#2
Quote:the cingulum dropping out of use in the second half of the 2nd century, and pteruges worn with segmentata and hamata coming in at about that time. More than that, is the change related to the adoption of trouser-wearing (also picked up en masse in the latter half of the 2nd century).
Pteryges predate the demise of the cingulum by quite some time. I mean, they belong to a subarmalis don't they - aren't they a Greek invention? The first introduction of trousers may have had more to do with it. Or perhaps a change in fashion.
Robert Vermaat
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FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#3
What I'm referring to really, is the widespread adoption (OK, 'wider' adoption) of pteruges by the rank and file in the mid 2nd century . They seem to be much more common, just as the cingulum drops out of use by common solders.

This is fashion, so is full of messy overlap. But I wondered if the new taste for barbarian style trousers brought in around the Marcommanic Wars did not agree with cingulum wearing? What role pteruges play I don't know because I'm not sure what purpose they serve.... common legionaries and auxiliaries seem to have done without them in the previous two centuries.
Paul Elliott

Legions in Crisis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/17815...d_i=468294

Charting the Third Century military crisis - with a focus on the change in weapons and tactics.
Reply
#4
Quote:What I'm referring to really, is the widespread adoption (OK, 'wider' adoption) of pteruges by the rank and file in the mid 2nd century . They seem to be much more common, just as the cingulum drops out of use by common solders.

This is fashion, so is full of messy overlap. But I wondered if the new taste for barbarian style trousers brought in around the Marcommanic Wars did not agree with cingulum wearing? What role pteruges play I don't know because I'm not sure what purpose they serve.... common legionaries and auxiliaries seem to have done without them in the previous two centuries.

I've always assumed that Pteruges and the cingulum serve roughly the same purpose i.e. decorative protection. How much protection they offer is I suppose open to debate and the material from which they are made.
Marc Byrne
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#5
It was this bit of research that got me thinking: http://www.legionsix.org/Equipment/Basic...gmenta.htm
Paul Elliott

Legions in Crisis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/17815...d_i=468294

Charting the Third Century military crisis - with a focus on the change in weapons and tactics.
Reply
#6
Hi Paul

I presume you mean the apron like element attached to the belt? Mike Bishop has an article in JRMES on this (should be referenced somewhere on RAT). It was not a vital bit of kit in Republican times at all and was at it's most elaborate in the early imperial era. By the time of Trajan's column it was very much reduced for the Legionaries, the Auxilliaries don't have it at all and by the time of Severus appears to have been lost altogether even by the Legionaries. However decorative strap elements begin to appear again soon afterwards in the third century, only once again to drop out of use in favour of all those chip carved decorations on the belt itself.

So it would appear nothing at all to do with the wearing or not of pteryges or trousers but a decorative fashion statement. You do refer to the modesty aspect. Again this is dictated by fashion. At times it was frowned upon for soldiers to show their bare legs whist dining, at other times as you have pointed out, when tunics were worn very short it was possible and very likely that more than the legs were exposed!

Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.

"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.

"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
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#7
Ah, thanks Graham, that certainly clears up a theory or two.

Next, the abandonment of the curved scutum, and the adoption of the oval shield and spatha ;-) ;-) ;-)
Paul Elliott

Legions in Crisis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/17815...d_i=468294

Charting the Third Century military crisis - with a focus on the change in weapons and tactics.
Reply


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