Illustrations of Sassanid Persian Clibanarii

[Urselius]

I just remembered an image showing that the Romans probably did layer plate over mail, as shown here:

http://home.arcor.de/berzelmayr/junkel-2.jpg

The Arlon cavalrymen are shown wearing what appear to be segmented plate pauldrons over mail shirts. The possibility of plate being worn over mail defences for Roman cataphracts is thereby strengthened. Given that the sculpture is crisp and shows accurate details, such as trilobate pommels on the swords and embossed decoration on the helmet cheekpieces, the idea that the strips at the shoulders are distorted depictions of leather edging on mail shoulder doubling seems far-fetched.