06-01-2013, 07:21 PM
Quote:You wouldn't happen to have a reference for me as a starting point by chance?
Just the ones given in the thread:
Ammianus Marcellinus (Amm. 16.10.8 ): "...and scattered among them were the full-armoured cavalry (whom they call clibanarii), all masked, furnished with protecting breastplates and girt with iron belts, so that you might have supposed them statues polished by the hand of Praxiteles, not men."
Ammianus also describes Persian masked cavalry (Amm. 25.1.12): "Moreover, all the companies were clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff joints conformed with those of their limbs; and the forms of human faces were so skilfully fitted to their heads, that, since their entire bodies were plated with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings fitted to the circle of the eye, or where through the tips of their noses they were able to get a little breath."
Also Julian, Oration 1, 37B-38A: "Your cavalry was almost unlimited in numbers and they all sat their horses like statues, while their limbs were fitted with armour that followed closely the outline of the human form. It covers the arms from wrist to elbow and thence to the shoulder, while a coat of mail protects the shoulders, back and breast. The head and face are covered by a metal mask which makes its wearer look like a glittering statue, for not even the thighs and legs and the very ends of the feet lack this armour. It is attached to the cuirass by fine chain-armour like a web, so that no part of the body is visible and uncovered, for this woven covering protects the hands as well, and is so flexible that the wearers can bend even their fingers."
And the novelist Heliodorus (Aethiopica, 9.15), who may be adapting elements of Julian's description: "Their fighting equipment is furnished in this way... a helmet which has been compacted and forged in one piece and skilfully fashioned like a mask into the exact shape of a man’s face; this protects him entirely from the top of his head to the neck, except where the eye-holes allow him to see through it.... When the moment comes to engage in battle, he gives his horse the rein, applies his spurs, and in full career charges the enemy, to all appearance some man made of iron, or a mobile statue wrought with the hammer... He braces himself and, firmly set so as to increase the gravity of the wound, by his mere impetus transfixes anyone who comes in his way, and may often impale two persons at a single stroke."
Claudian (Against Rufinus, II.357) also goes for the 'living statues' image: "On the left stands the infantry. Over against them the cavalry seek to restrain their eager steeds by holding tight the reins. Here nod the savage waving plumes whose wearers rejoice to shake the flashing colours of their shoulder-armour; for steel clothes them on and gives them their shape; the limbs within give life to the armour's pliant scales so artfully conjoined, and strike terror into the beholder. 'Tis as though iron statues moved and men lived cast from that same metal. The horses are armed in the same way; their heads are encased in threatening iron, their forequarters move beneath steel plates protecting them from wounds..."
and Claudian again (On the Sixth Consulship of Honorius, 600): "When she sees the mail-clad knights and brazen-armoured horses she would fain know whence that iron race of men is sprung and what land it is gives birth to steeds of bronze. "Has the god of Lemnos," she would ask, "bestowed on metal the power to neigh, and forged living statues for the fight?"."
On the psychological effects of armoured clibanarii, here's the orator Nazarius (Panegyrici Latini IV, 22,3-22,2): "What a spectactle it is said to have been, how dreadful to behold, how terrible, horses and men alike enclosed in a covering of iron! In the army they are called clibanarii... their armour doubled the terror inspired by so large a number [but] That display of armour, that army covered in iron, which would have been a painful sight to unwarlike men, stimulated the spirits of invincible ones..."
I still believe that the 'terror' and 'awe' described in these extracts derives largely from the masked appearance of these riders, a 'living statue' or automaton being a genuinely uncanny and terrifying prospect!
Nathan Ross
