04-02-2007, 07:02 PM
Hello Anthony.
It was very interesting to read your experiments. Could you explain further how you hardened your leather with water as there are many people who are under the impression that making it wet renders it useless!
Pliny the Elder writing about the Hippopotamus throws in the additional information that the skin can be used for helmets and shields but was useless when wet.
Anthony did you or could you try your tests after soaking the cuirass in water, simulating rain?
I am sure that like other types of armour if leather armour was used to any extent by the Romans it would not come in one standard version. Leather can be moulded into shape and many of the decorated features we see on statues could be done in this way and then applied and gilded. There is no reason to see it simply as a cheap option. Muscle cuirass armour is shown in sculpture being worn by a range of troop types and not all appear to be officers. So it depends again on whether you believe that the ancient artists are faithfully recording what they see or are working off standard Hellenistic patterns.
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Graham.
It was very interesting to read your experiments. Could you explain further how you hardened your leather with water as there are many people who are under the impression that making it wet renders it useless!
Quote:Isn't there some ancient source stating that leather armor is useless when wet? Doesn't sound like armor for the big wigs.
Pliny the Elder writing about the Hippopotamus throws in the additional information that the skin can be used for helmets and shields but was useless when wet.
Anthony did you or could you try your tests after soaking the cuirass in water, simulating rain?
I am sure that like other types of armour if leather armour was used to any extent by the Romans it would not come in one standard version. Leather can be moulded into shape and many of the decorated features we see on statues could be done in this way and then applied and gilded. There is no reason to see it simply as a cheap option. Muscle cuirass armour is shown in sculpture being worn by a range of troop types and not all appear to be officers. So it depends again on whether you believe that the ancient artists are faithfully recording what they see or are working off standard Hellenistic patterns.
[
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
