Roman wall painting of musculata in color from first century

[Caratacus]

A quick thought re the depiction of armour in a mosaic as being iron. The mosaic artist will inevitably be constrained by the colours of stone that he has available for his 'picture'. You can't mix stone colours in the way that you can paint! Armour that is meant to be either tinned or silvered has to be rendered in such a way that it is obvious that it isn't bronze/brass. This may well lead to the use of darker stone colours than would be accurate, which might fool a modern viewer into thinking that he/she was looking at a depiction of an iron object. Alternatively, maybe the artist simply wasn't very good at his craft - a case of "near enough is good enough"!

To a lesser degree, this might also be true for wall paintings. The number of paint pigments that were available would be somewhat limited (judging by analyses that I have seen of the actual pigments involved). What this means is that, at the very least, it is somewhat dangerous to rely on this sort of 'evidence' when trying to arrive at a conclusion for such things as the colours of armour and clothing.

That the Romans painted their houses. temples, etc. is beyond doubt. We also know that they painted their statues and their tombstones. However, these surfaces have 'tooth' and will retain pigment. Metal, however, requires a primer coat before the paint will adhere. I've yet to see any convincing evidence that they had such a material available.

Caratacus
(Mike Thomas)