Leather covered clipeus

[Matt Lukes]

If you are talking about an agricultural culture like Rome or Greece then yes, leather was more expensive.

But if I look at Diocletian´s price edict this looks very different.
A sagum is rated with 4000
wheras a hide of the finest leather (Babylonian ) is rated 500
imperiumromanum.com/wirtschaft/wert/preisedikt_index.htm ( good page for a quick introduction)
Not the best comparison, but the tendency seems clear.

The sagum's a finished product though and the hide isn't. A good comparison would be a hide vs an equivalent sized bolt of linen or cotton fabric. And for all we know there was some kind of regional price issue- more for the good Roman item, less for the provincial raw material- like how things made in the US are much more expensive than those from China.

[Tarbicus]

This still doesn't get around the fact that many, if not all, artistic depictions of soldiers in combat and hunting scenarios show them with ornate shields. This includes sculptural evidence from columns and arches. One of the ornately decorated Dura shields even has the same shield (I believe) depicted being carried by a number of soldiers in combat painted on its front.

http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/download.php?id=1524

[Matt Lukes]

They do? By ornate I mean both the Dura scutum and the one you just posted Jim- not just the classic wings, lightning bolts, etc. of earlier depictions. I'm unaware of any depictions that show that level of ornateness on clearly soldiers' shields- if you do, definitely share!

The soldiers on the shield you posted are carrying painted shields, but although I see what you mean about some looking interestingly like the same one, there's nothing to suggest they're actually ornately-painted- they could be simply just the colors shown and nothing else.

I find it very difficult to believe that every soldier carried a shield that was so incredibly ornately-painted. It's very impractical- not only because shields are there to take damage, but because only a tiny number, relatively, of people can paint like that, and as I'm sure you and Christian both know, it's not a quick process , thus it's not something every soldier can just do for himself.

[Peroni]

it's not a quick process , thus it's not something every soldier can just do for himself.

Deepeeka has just ONE guy that paints all of the shields!! the Dura scuta as well as all of their other simpler designs. It would only take a few slaves that had a talent to produce a goodly number of quite ornate shields.

Maybe they DID start off having the simple colour scheme (as seen on the example Jim posted above) but if you had some spare cash, why not get a design painted onto those basic colours by the local painter? I'm sure that even a guy that's employed to paint and decorate room plaster could paint a shield like this. You would in effect still have the basic colours which could easily be identified in battle or identified by your own fellow soldiers.

The art itself isn't that complicated if looked at closely, just crude strokes. Rather 'impressionist' if you will.

[Tarbicus]

One guy? Ha!! Crash and burn Lukes!

dagga-dagga-dagga... :wink: :wink:

The shields painted on the Dura shield show the same characteristics of colour and general design. If eyes are the smallest thing that could be painted, it's not likely fancy decorative detail could be done. Why wouldn't those shields be painted blue, or have a different overall pattern on them, if they weren't the same? A soldier with a shield that said to everyone "Look, we kill Parthians."

not only because shields are there to take damage,

We don't know that. A shield that tells a story is very valuable propoganda and a sign to the locals of what these men do. A walking reminder.

[Caballo]

And, as an aside, a "scutarius" (specialist shield maker/ (painter?)) called Lucius is mentioned as being at Vindolanda in tablet 184.
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/4DLink2 ... sPageNum=0

Peronis wrote "The art itself isn't that complicated if looked at closely, just crude strokes. Rather 'impressionist' if you will." Mind you, frater, having seen both your shield painting and your (IIRC prize winning?) painting at smaller scales, I think you are operating at a higher skill level than many of us!

Cheers

Caballo

[Tarbicus]

Some more info from James on the decoration of the Dura shields:

At least three media used for paints and preparation:
The Yale rectangular shield was painted with encaustic. Good for weatherproofing.
The oval shields mostly prepared with gesso to take paint, of tempera, and one casein.
Various pigments and dyes probably identified; vermilion, carbon black and a reddish yellow earth. Indigo extensively used.
Basic technique was to apply an overall base colour, usually red, to the gesso or skin covering (not under the skin), then overlay the detailed decoration.
The design on shield 629 (the famous cylindrical one) could well be legionary in character.

The important thing that strikes me is the number of Dura shields with paintwork on: 629, 616, 617, 621, 622, 624, 618, 633, 634, 629, 633, 634.

He does ask the question if the decorated shields are for parade, and goes on to say that soldiers may have had two shields for combat and parade. He suggests the more uncomplicated designs were for combat roles, but the surprising thing is he puts the famous semicylindrical shield (629) in that category. hock:

He does believe the shields with dominant single figures of could be unit specific and for parade.

"Shield 629 even corresponds with Polybius' description of of the facing technique, with fabric first, then skin (contra Rep,. VI, 461). Masada has yielded a fragment of a shield faced with a layer of textile covered with a red-pigmented leather,..."

Shield 629 is of plane wood, and the plank shields of poplar, corresponding with Pliny's observations on the best woods for shields (woods that heal together at once and close up their own wound - vine, agnus castus, willow, lime, birch, elder and both kinds of poplar. Plane has flexibility, but of a moist kind, like alder; a drier flexibility belongs to elm, ash, mulberry and cherry, but it is heavier...)

The surprising introduction of simple plank shields, and he thinks it was for making convex shield boards which may have outweighed the advantages of plywood. The fibre facing layers would have offset splitting, so there is no reason to believe they were only for ceremonial or training use. Fragments were found in the 'combat deposit' of Tower 19.

Similar shields found elsewhere from Egypt to Trier.

Masada produced shield leathers from oval shields, possibly Republican scutum shape, and plywood board fragments with traces of gesso, fabric and leather, some with traces of reddish and bluish paint.

Going back to the shield I posted earlier, "It is virtually certain that the oval plank shields were used in the fighting. They are the predominant type at Dura, and parts of one or more were found in the Tower 19 countermine with the the bodies... It may be that the painted shields discarded under the rampart were regarded as valueless for fighting not because they were made of planks, but because they lacked the 'anti-split' layers of fibre/glue and skin covering."

So, the shield I posted (616) looks like it probably was decorative. The scene is also said to be the Trojan War.

dagga...dagga...dagga..."ugh". I take it all back and am eating my own words.

[Matt Lukes]

One guy? Ha!! Crash and burn Lukes!

dagga-dagga-dagga... :wink: :wink:

LOL Yeah, but the Romans never made it to India

And eating your own words? Not necessarily- the one thing that occurred to me is that at some point it may have been the case that anything usable was put into action- even parade shields. Maybe the reason we have them to find is that they were the last and least useful things- the ones that got left behind?

I don't want it thought that I have a particular strong opinion one way or the other- it's just an observation that the detailed painting strikes me as a bit much for combat shields that also have nice skin facings on both sides, and are made of wood that is apparently not such a great choice. The plank shields fit also- intricate painting and no strengthening elements such as rawhide. I've seen experiments where plank shields are shown to be impossibly weak without something to hold them together given that planks are connected by butt joints. I've never been able to reconcile this save to think they're parade or otherwise display objects...

[Tarbicus]

It actually seems to be a case of both - plank shields without strengthening facings are useless in combat, but shield 629 seems to show that elaborate decoration could be present on combat shields.

:roll:

[Matt Lukes]

Indeed. Things are never cut-and-dried, are they? Much as some of us would like them to be... I sure would :lol:

[caiusbeerquitius]

I would also like to say again, that gesso is quite hard and stengthens the shield far more than one might think at first.