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SNAPPY SOLDIER TUNIC PLEAT
#46
Travis,

Yes, we can be sure that Roman clothing _was_ large. However, producing permanent pleats such as you suggest would mean that the tunic of the disgraced soldier made to remove his belts would not fall below his knees, as it surely must have. Therefore any pleating effect must have been such that it could be instantly undone. I use a waist tie which I hitch the sides of the tunic up over, producing a reasonably good number of crescent shapes in the front and back. The removal of the waist tie means that the tunic intantly returns to mid-calf length. John's fibulae would allow for the same effect, although I suspect they could come undone or be uncomfortable under armour.

For a contemporary view of tunics, giving an idea of how baggy they were, this is part of one of the friezes from the arch of Titus in Rome.


[Image: arcotito.jpg]
Copyright © Mary Ann Sullivan

Incidentally, if I am wearing my fascia ventralis (waist sash / cumberbund) I still hitch the tunic up in the same way over the waist tie and put the sash over this. My military belt is then put on over the sash after the sash has been secured by tucking the free end under the rest of the material. When I finally get a digital camera I will put some photos up.

Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

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#47
SALVE

Here's my contribution.



At our group, LEGIO PRIMA GERMANICA, we use the sashband with profusion:
[url:19r6xou1]http://personales.ya.com/ad932102038/germanica/data/mara_html/images/altimp2.jpg[/url]
[url:19r6xou1]http://personales.ya.com/ad932102038/germanica/data/tv5/images/dscf0514.jpg[/url]

[url:19r6xou1]http://personales.ya.com/ad932102038/germanica/data/archeon05/images/rat.jpg[/url]
I use it with or without the armour, and helps A LOT to avoid muscular lesions and support the weight of the armour.

If you put the sashband and a tunic and adjust the lenght pulling the sides, like Crispus and Tarbicus have pointed, the form of the Rhineland tombstones appears:
[url:19r6xou1]http://personales.ya.com/ad932102038/germanica/data/ut2mayo/images/IMGP2848.jpg[/url]
If the tunic are made of the correct dimensions, it haven't movement restrictions, like the photos show:
[url:19r6xou1]http://personales.ya.com/ad932102038/germanica/data/tv5_3/images/dsc05929.jpg[/url]
[url:19r6xou1]http://personales.ya.com/ad932102038/germanica/data/Veleia2005/images/iesooo.jpg[/url]

Our group use the tunic without sleeves, using the dimensions proposed in the Graham Summer's book, that it's like a Bible to us. I profit that forum to thanks a lot the author his contribution to the roman military clothing.

VALE
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#48
Lucius

Great pictures! thanks.

So you would say that the extra material is a net benefit then, and that there are no serious problems with binding and discomfort?

Crispus.

Thanks for your comments. I don't think it's an all-or-nothing proposition.

If pleats are produced with a running stitch I don't think it would affect the over-all-length of the tunic, only the way it drapes. The sash and the belt could account for the length of the tunic, but the pleats might be just naturally there.

The reason I believe this is the vast amount of Roman statuary where we have figures in non-military contexts that have pleats, but no sashes, cingulae or other features. The u-shaped draping is pretty universal to all Roman clothing through the 1st-2nd C. Male, female, miles, cives, what have you.

All of the clothing exhibits extensive pleating, not just military clothing.

There's two explanations. Either there were elaborate grooming and dressing customs to get the pleats, that's not impossible, lord knows we have lots of cultural obsessions we can't defend on any grounds of impracticality. My thought is that it just must have something to do with the way the clothes are made.

We see two major patterns of pleats. Long vertical pleats, and u-shaped pleats. The long vertical pleats could easily be made with gathers in the shoulder seams, the u-patterns by gathers in the side seams.

It seems simple and it appears to be what I am seeing in the statuary.

One more point. a running stitch would be concealed and you wouldn't see any evidence of the stitching if it were done on the inside. We do see stitching on some of these statues but not on the gathered sections, which is what we would expect to see if they were using a running stitch.

Thanks for the comments.

Travis
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aka Travis Lee Clark (21st C. American name)

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#49
Quote:So you would say that the extra material is a net benefit then, and that there are no serious problems with binding and discomfort?

The extra cloth under the armour is comfortable and helps, acting like padding.
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#50
What is a good width and lenght for a kummerbund?

Kind regards,
Jef Pinceel
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#51
Width: 30 cm
Lenght: 3 m

You can fold the last loop to make a "pocket", when you use it without the armour.
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#52
I would like to see some pictures of non-military tunics with the pleats. Somewhere in this thread, either Bishop or Sumner has pointed out that the depiction of pleating on the lower part of the tunic appears mostly in steles from the Mainz area.
"In war as in loving, you must always keep shoving." George S. Patton, Jr.
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#53
John.

Just now looking through my notes and Diana Kleiner's "Roman Sculpture", I found these references.

I am working on pictures now, since I don't have any handy in my image bank at home, but basically, u-shaped pleats occur anywhere we see short tunics, regardless of context, military or civilian.

Specifically, in the frieze of the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces the baker in Rome, outside the Porta Maggiore.

The monument of the Lusius Storax, the figures on the far left in short tunics

In the Alimentia relief from the Trajanic arch at Benevento

Also in the relief depicting the burning of the debt records from the reign of Trajan, now in the Curia in the Roman Forum.

In the Cancelleria relief,

The vicomagistri relief and various other "Freedman" and Genre reliefs.

The portrait of Antinoos as Sylvanus in the Palazzo Massimo in Rome.

On a romanized portrait of Anubis in the round from the Vatican

There are lots really.

Basically, long tunics have vertical pleats, short tunics employ the u or v-shaped pleats.

Now this may just be an artistic convention, so it's hard to tell, but if we are operating on the assumption that these pleats are at all representative of the actual clothing worn, (and that's a big assumption) we should be careful not to look at only military examples, because it might lead to the impression that this is a military feature and not just a feature of the short tunic in general.

I'm not a military expert by any means, so I'm unaware if there are any references to pleats in any of the primary literature, or if there is a specific military reason for the pleats. If there are, then that changes how we look at the material.

I'm not 100% on this, since I don't know the military stuff as well, actually, I'm probably about 60-65% certain, but I think that the u-shaped pleats may just be a natural product of the short tunic, regardless of context.

As far as the Mainz stelae go, I have never seen them in person, but they are done in a provincial style, and I think that makes the folds look more deliberate than they are.

Check out the soldiers from the Pozzuoli Arch in the Berlin Staatliche Museen or the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology. I'm looking at both now in Kleiner's book, figures 194 and 195, page 229. They both have the typical u-shaped pleats, but they are far less rigid. It's hard to tell if they are deliberate, or just an artifact of the natural drape of the short tunic.

I'm inclined to believe the provincial stuff is rendering the pleats in a more typical genre style, which is more common in freedman and plebian art and Rome in the 1st-2nd C., but becomes the prevalent style by the late empire.

Unless someone can point to a specific reason, militarily or in the primary literature, why should we believe that this is anything other than an artifact of the short tunic? That's why I started thinking about stitching as a solution.

Travis
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aka Travis Lee Clark (21st C. American name)

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#54
Quote:
Quote:So you would say that the extra material is a net benefit then, and that there are no serious problems with binding and discomfort?

The extra cloth under the armour is comfortable and helps, acting like padding.

Thanks Lucius!

Always nice to have a practical answer to things like this.

Tante Grazie!

Travis
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aka Travis Lee Clark (21st C. American name)

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#55
Quote:I would like to see some pictures of non-military tunics with the pleats. Somewhere in this thread, either Bishop or Sumner has pointed out that the depiction of pleating on the lower part of the tunic appears mostly in steles from the Mainz area.

Here's what I found in the Imagebase, and they do seem predominantly from Germany.
Publius Flavoleius Cordus - Mainz
Gaius Faltonius Secundus - Mainz
Genialis - Mainz
Unknown Miles - Mainz
Unknown Miles - Mainz
Quintus Petilius Secundus - Bonn
Firmus - Andernach
Hyperanor - Bingen-Bingerbrück
Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera - Bingen-Bingerbrück
Pintaius - Bonn
Unknown Miles - Cologne
Apart from those with date unknown they are also 1st Century.

Less definite and outside of Germany:
Balaterus - Cherchel, Algeria
Camomile Street Soldier - London - my favourite and done by an incredibly talented sculptor.

Quote:but I think that the u-shaped pleats may just be a natural product of the short tunic, regardless of context.
It's definitely a natural effect of gathering and hitching the tunic up to shorter length.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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#56
Quote:WidtH: 30 cm
Lenght: 3 m
Thát long?
Robert Vermaat
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#57
"Basically, long tunics have vertical pleats, short tunics employ the u or v-shaped pleats."

The short tunic and the long tunic are one and the same: the tunic, either left to hang long or hitched up to hang at a shorter length. In my experience of wearing a tunic, if it is worn long and belted in some way at the waist, the waist tie will pull much of the material together, creating the impression of vertical 'pleats'. When the arms are raised some of the material at the sides is pulled up slightly, causing some of the 'pleats' to curve inwards. If the tunic is left unbelted, given that the dimensions of a tunic are a good deal larger than the dimensions of a normal human being, some natural gathering of the material slill occurs. If the tunic is belted and hitched up evenly, 'pleats' tend to hang vertically. The amount of material which is 'bloused' over the waist tie (visible in the photo I posted above) is sufficient that any movement of the arms is unlikely to affect the way the 'skirt' of the tunic hangs. If, however, the tunic is hitched up only at the sides, curves and crescents naturally appear in the 'skirt'. If it is carefully hitched up these crescents can be quite well defined. If the tunic is hitched up in a random sort of way the 'pleats' are likely to end up in a mixture of vertical and curving shapes.
Here is one of the Mainz column bases, showing both curving and vertical 'pleats', presumably a reflection of different ways of hitching up the tunic.

[Image: mainz002_w.jpg]
(Photo courtesy of the R.A.com sculpture gallery)


Crispvs
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#58
Quote:That long?

Yes, it also helps as a protection for the lower back under the weight of the armour.
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#59
If you pull the tunic up in layers at the sides, just as John described with the fibula, but under a cummerbund instead which is used to keep them in place, you get exactly as the stele show. The larger the tunic the more pleats you can get, and the cummerbund allows you to arrange the pleats very easily. It makes a very plain looking garment look very ..... snappy Big Grin John's fibula method also works really well, but I tended to bloody my fingers and tunic a bit, so it's down to preference or how clumsy you are I guess.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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#60
Quote:"Basically, long tunics have vertical pleats, short tunics employ the u or v-shaped pleats."

The short tunic and the long tunic are one and the same: the tunic, either left to hang long or hitched up to hang at a shorter length.

If you are talking about the art in general, there clearly are representations of long tunics and short tunics that are different lengths and not just one tunic hitched up in different fashions. Flamines, Aediles, magistrates, wear long tunics. Short tunics are worn by workers, soldiers, bakers, slaves and others. So there clearly are two types and lengths of tunics in Roman Art.

If you are talking about just the representations of soldiers then I can see why my original comments might seem inaccurate, but I was talking about pleats and drapery across the wide spectrum of Roman Art, not just for soldiers.

Also, I don't think that the pleats are purely a product of how they are hitched up either. When you see the statuary first hand, the shoulder seams have significant gathers which could be produced with a running stitch. This would make nice vertical pleats. a running stitch running vertically along the inseam, would produce horiztonal gathers, that, as they hang, would produce u-shaped folds. Now I'm not certain about this, it's just a suggestion, one which I think explains the folds we are seeing and makes them not an intentional product, but natural parts of the garments worn that no one would have to think about.

Otherwise, if we assume the soldiers are intentionally hitching up their tunics to make these "snappy" pleats, as some sort of fashion statement, then we have to come up with a cultural reason for bakers, slaves, boys, and many other classes to do the same since we see the same features in their representations. I think that's a stretch.

Travis
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aka Travis Lee Clark (21st C. American name)

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