05-03-2013, 01:40 AM
But do you not think that those cuirasses had long since been abandoned as functional military gear, unless perhaps by a general? Just like, in the 1st century CE, the Apulian-Corinthian helmet had been out of military use for at least 3 centuries?
We all agree we are speculating as long as we have not found such helmets, so bear with me.
I cannot help feeling the artist of Mikkalus' tombstone is in a different category from those of the soldier tombstones of the 1st centuries. While the latter seem to be made by dexterious masons, their figures not being very accomplished, lacking the classical proportion and looking rather stiff and constipated, Mikkalus' tombstone shows lively, classically Hellenistic soldiers in what seems to me historicising gear. I suspect that Mikkalus' berieved had the money to pay a high status classical artist, instead of the mason around the corner. While such a mason would work on the gear his clients would bring him, an artist worked with the paraphernalia of his own trade, used to portray religious, historic or mythical figures.
We all agree we are speculating as long as we have not found such helmets, so bear with me.
I cannot help feeling the artist of Mikkalus' tombstone is in a different category from those of the soldier tombstones of the 1st centuries. While the latter seem to be made by dexterious masons, their figures not being very accomplished, lacking the classical proportion and looking rather stiff and constipated, Mikkalus' tombstone shows lively, classically Hellenistic soldiers in what seems to me historicising gear. I suspect that Mikkalus' berieved had the money to pay a high status classical artist, instead of the mason around the corner. While such a mason would work on the gear his clients would bring him, an artist worked with the paraphernalia of his own trade, used to portray religious, historic or mythical figures.
