Depicitions of Muscalata actually a Subarmalis?

[damianlz]

This has been a question on my mind for some time and despite searching I have not been able to find an answer so if this has been answered I apologise, also as this is an interest and not a full time profession for me I humbly down again if this is a silly question.

. Put simply, my question is if it is possible that the Muscalata depicted in artwork, fresco's and status in MOST (not all) cases is actually a representation of the subarmalis. My reason for this line of thinking is thus;

While there have been early finds of bronze muscalata there have not been any finds after 300bc? And yet this item is shown out until the later empire as being something worn by all the troops. I certainly can understand if artistic convention was the reason for showing muscalata for so long but as it seems to always been showing with Pteruges could it actually be showing the subarmalis with attached Pteruges? Soldiers off duty would have worn their belt, sword and possibly their Subarmalis so this would be the more common image that the commoner and artists saw and therefore part of the reason why they are depicted so frequently. Also in terms of style the overly "muscled" appearance would be an artistic depiction of the strong brave idea soldier.

Just food for thought and musing, I certainly don't mean to try lead anyone astray and would love to know what people think and/or if this has been discussed before.

[Doc]

It cannot be a representation of the subarmalis because many have relief figures on them. Many of those figures are rather elaborage so why put expensive figures to what most likely is a cloth garment worn under armor to protect against fchafing and blunt trauma.

Moreover, if you look closely at some statues you can see that the pteryges come out from underneath the tongue pteryges where the tongue pteryges are on top. So if anything it would be the tongue pteryges attached to the armor not the longer ones, which in my opinion were made of cloth.


For a cloth garment to afford the protection of a metal armpr, it would have to be extremely thick.....think of the weight especially if it gets wet.

There was a Roman musculata that was from third to fourth century AD, I believe.