12-01-2007, 11:27 PM
Ave Tarbicus,
What a shame. But a better picture may not reveal much more since that portion of the mosaic looks rather sloppy to me.
Based solely on the horizontal bands and the length of the armor in question I'd say it could be lamellar. But my guess presupposes that the artist knew exactly what he was doing. So my position is basically the same as Vortigern's : If it's supposed to be a seg, and it could be, then it's a bad depiction. Hell, I think it's a bad depiction anyway
We know that long lamellar cuirasses existed as seen on this sixth-century silver plate from Italy.
On the other hand, the way the armor is behaving, being so form-fitting, it may represent chainmail. See how prominently the soldier's gut hangs out ? I don't know if lamellar or squamata can behave this way but I have my doubts.
The nice thing about the musculata is that it's by far the easiest type of Roman armor to depict artistically which makes it easy to identify.
~Theo
Quote:I also have to say that I don't think it's archaic armour, but contemporary. The Hellenistic style is no great surprise in some details, but I really do think it's mostly contemporary just as much later painters contemporarised Biblical scenes.I see. Maybe you were refering to some of the other scenes that show more Hellenistic armor which I agree there is. My earlier comments were solely about the selected scenes I posted up showing Joshua and the Israelites (all of which appear to wear Late Roman armor, garb, etc..) Whereas the other armies, Egyptian or Semitic, appear to wear Hellenistic lorica. This isn't suprising to me. The Isrealites are the good guys so Roman artists would naturally depict them as legionaries.
Quote:Do you have any more photos of the mosaics, as they're far better quality than any I've seen before.Yes, as I said earlier, the photos are mine which I got from one of my books. The book has many more battle scenes from St. Maria Maggiore but, no, I don't see the one that has the soldier you posted.
Quote:Here's the thread that I found very frustrating to convince anyone of the depiction of segmentata
What a shame. But a better picture may not reveal much more since that portion of the mosaic looks rather sloppy to me.
Based solely on the horizontal bands and the length of the armor in question I'd say it could be lamellar. But my guess presupposes that the artist knew exactly what he was doing. So my position is basically the same as Vortigern's : If it's supposed to be a seg, and it could be, then it's a bad depiction. Hell, I think it's a bad depiction anyway
We know that long lamellar cuirasses existed as seen on this sixth-century silver plate from Italy.
On the other hand, the way the armor is behaving, being so form-fitting, it may represent chainmail. See how prominently the soldier's gut hangs out ? I don't know if lamellar or squamata can behave this way but I have my doubts.
The nice thing about the musculata is that it's by far the easiest type of Roman armor to depict artistically which makes it easy to identify.
~Theo
Jaime
