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Why Sasanids or Parthians?
They wear Roman style tight leggings and the swords are shortish in Roman style rather than the longer Sasanid ones. The shields could easily be poor depictions of Roman oval shields and long sleeved mail is depicted elsewhere for Romans but the armour is not similar to depictions of Parthians or Sasanids.
IMO there are quite a few reasons why they could be Roman.
Nik Gaukroger
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Hi Nik,
Why are the legggings 'typically Roman'?
Why do you interpret the leggings and swords as accurate but the shields as 'poor'? I think the hexagonal shields are very un-Roman, and logic would call for the very 'typical'Roman shields as one of the easiest items of Roman equipment to reproduce! If the artist botched up the shields that bad, would we be able to trust the rest of the depiction at all? :wink:
The main reason for the soldiers to be 'seen' as enemies of Rome is because the are the enemies of Israel in the artwork. Depicting Romans in the riole of 'enemies' would be possible of course, but also a bit risky.
As to the figures not being parthians or Sassanids, their swords may be short (some seem single-edged?), but the long scale (mail?) armour was much more a Parthian/Sassanid thing than seen in Roman armies.
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I must admit, the red clavii make me think "Romans".
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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I was curious if anyone had considered an impression based on this item of Equipment!
Why are they un-Roman shields? Were there not cavelry shields of a similar shape? There are not exactly hundreds of shield remains in existance?
The coifs look like mail to me as well, even if faded.
Is this printed on a fabric that could explain any patterning in the upper figures coiff? I get the impression it is scale, as with the lower figure, the lower figure's seem to have a scale shape around the bottom of the coiff.
I cannot open your link, Damien is it? So I cannot see what that shows I am afraid.
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