Roman Military Clothing Vol 2

[derek forrest]

Here is the first notice of this bookwww.ospreypublishing.com/...itle=S5597<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Nice....good eyes Derek. <p>Magnus/Matt<br>
Legio XXX "Ulpia Victrix" Coh I<br>
<br>
- Let it be known, that I have 1248 posts to date, but because the techies at Ezboard are incompetent, they no longer show up.</p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

I'm eagerly waiting for it, because it touches my period!<br>
I've opened the 'large' version of the front cover and I've found out the first blunder: The right hand man is a reconstruction of the Piazza Armerina 'main' officer. At that small scale, he seems to be well understood in the main but Graham Summer has placed his shoes (campagi) inverted (left on right foot and viceversa)!<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>

[Goffredo]

Great<br>
I love the same period too.<br>
Will get this ASAP <p></p><i></i>

[Robert Vermaat]

You're right Aitor, it seems he's woken up in a hurry!<br>
Isn't his Pilleus Pannonicus a bit on the high side, too? One of the mistakes I think Southern&Dixon made was with the Pannonicus, too, which they described as a 'fez-type' piece of headgear, based on a mosaic where the sides were indeed a little slanted. But most representations in art which I've seen, including the one represented in the image below right, is that the Pannonicus had straight sides and a flat top.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Robert<br>
[url=http://www.fectio.org.uk/" target="top]FECTIONES SENIORES[/url]<br>
<img src="http://www.ospreypublishing.com/osp_img/titlecovers/S5597AL.JPG" style="border:0;"/> <p></p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

Yes, I think that the pilleus is too high and that it should be a little more rigid. My pilleus is made of astrakan on a moulded felt core. Anyway, the rest of my group have made theirs using only astrakan. Of course, mine is more rigid, but theirs look rigid enough too, more than that on Sumner's book, indeed!<br>
If seems as if Sumner has aligned with the 'round-shielders', Robert! BTW, do you think that the shield is flat or dished?<br>
All this with only the front cover. This thread promises, more in a fortnight! <br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>

[Robert Vermaat]

What do you mean? Obviously, the image shows an oval shield<br>
From what I can judge from this image, it looks flat...<br>
<br>
Robert <p></p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

Oh my God, Robert! Should I go to the optician or in your opinion the shield boss is oval too !<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Well the illustration looks oval enough to me - IIRC the excavated shields of the period are a pretty round oval rather than a thin oval. <p></p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

To which 'excavated shields of the period' are you referring?<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>

[derek forrest]

Graham has asked me to post the following letter<br>
Derek<br>
<br>
I do not agree with the criticisms about the reconstructed pileus pannonicus and campagi shown in Graham Sumner's illustration.<br>
<br>
Firstly, the reconstructed figure is inspired by the presumed figure of Maximian in the Piazza Armerina mosaic. Some details are different, probably because of the doubt of interpretation attached to this figure therefore the author has chosen to give an impression of a senior officer instead.<br>
<br>
The ancient sources nevertheless show us that the pileus pannonicus came in a number of varieties we have for instance a short pileus in the mosaics of Piazza Armerina, a medium high pileus worn by soldiers drinking on an engraved lamp preserved in the archaeological museum of Firenze, and finally a very high pileus both in the paintings of Catacombae in Via Latina (Ipogeo Dino Compagni) and in the paintings of Basilica of Santi Pietro and Marcellino in Roma.<br>
<br>
Furthermore, Constantine as a young Emperor is shown in very high Pileus Pannonicus in a IV century Egyptian sculpture preserved in the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh.<br>
<br>
I know personally about 200 representations of Pileus Pannonicus dated IV-V century AD and the sources show very clearly that the a cap was not only of different sizes but also of different materials and colours. Hopefully this will be explored further in a third volume about military clothing which I am working on in collaboration with Graham Sumner.<br>
<br>
With regards to the campagi worn by the man in the reconstruction they are based on original specimens found in Egypt by Forrer and can be compared with the examples, sadly damaged. which are depicted in the Piazza Armerina mosaic.<br>
<br>
There are a number of examples of Roman footwear which are symmetrical with no obvious left or right however I do not understand how some reviwers have mistaken those illustrated in the reconstruction as being worn on the wrong feet.<br>
<br>
Dr. Raffaele D'Amato, Turin, Italy.<br>
<br>
<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Dan Diffendale]

Are you sure that shield isn't round? It certainly looks round to me, if by round you mean circular as opposed to oval, it's just not depicted straight on...<br>
but then, I'm no shield expert, perhaps they were constructed in a way similar to the Parthenon, so that they appear circular even at an angle....<br>
<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

Well, maybe we cannot be too rigid on the pilleus because we've got only artistic portraits and not real remains, but the campagi are a very different thing. Has Mr Sumner examined the Deurne campagi?, they are distinctly asymmetrical. The Piazza Armerina depictions of the campagi are rather inconsistent but the old watercolours of the now nearly lost frescoes at Luxor show also asymmetrical campagi, like those at Leiden, with a slit open almost on the big toe's full length.<br>
<br>
BTW I don't like sterile polemics or annoying anybody, it is not my stile, but I cannot avoid thinking 'Does Mr Sumner think that he cannot be wrong? The rest of us are not so sure about that!'<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>

[derek forrest]

Here is another posting from Graham. I dread to think what a furore will be raised when its actually published!<br>
The inclusion of a variety of shoe styles in volume 1 of Roman Military Clothing proved to be extremly popular. The same approach was therefore applied to volume 2 and when the book is published readers will see reconstructions based on actual shoes, ancient paintings and mosaics from a number of sources including Deurne, Luxor, Dura Europos and Vindolanda.<br>
<br>
Wherever possible I prefer to base costume details in my illustrations on archaeological finds as opposed to ancient pictorial sources which will always be open to interpretation. In the latter case I can clearly be as wrong or as right as anyone else. Undoubtedly some illustrations in the second volume will raise some eyebrows but hopefully might encourage further research.<br>
<br>
The overall aim of the series of books was to illustrate that the corpus of material which was available on clothing was much greater than is generally believed. I hope this has been achieved and that readers will be encouraged to make their own discoveries.<br>
<br>
Graham Sumner.<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

My apologies for my last comment, Graham!<br>
<br>
We all look forward to see your book, which will be a good work. Nobody is free from making some blunder but that is implicit in the scientific method.<br>
See you and Derek at Tarragona, where you'll be able to see the many blunders and shortcuts in my re-enactment's group equipment!<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>