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Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:51:47 -0500
From: Matthew Amt
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:50:49 -0500
From: Matthew Amt
From: mamt@lrcm.usuhs.mil
Subject: Re: Oops!: Updated page on the lorica musculata
Date: March 25, 2005 9:19:59 PM CET
To: tlclark@temple.edu
Ave, Travis!
Mea culpa for the long delay, too many things that needed to be done
"now". You may know that story!
I have read through your website, and am basically loving it. Thanks
much for the kind references! Your research is impressive, and the stuff
you've been digging up is extremely thought-provoking.
Now for the critical bits, mostly either questions/clarifications, or
nit-picky less important things. But a couple bigger points.
In the "Bronze or Leather?" section, you show the bronze cuirass from the
British Museum and say that it's the only one from Italy that's close to the
Roman period. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your definition of "Roman period",
but there are quite a few cuirasses from Italy that date from probably the
6th or at least 5th century through the 4th and maybe into the 3rd. Peter
Connolly shows several and mentions others--he even shows one which has been
widened front-to-back for riding on horseback and says 2 others are know,
all from Italy. Since I tend to think of the Roman period as starting in
753 BC or at latest around 500, these would all count, though I certainly
agree that they aren't anywhere near the IMPERIAL period (nor even the end
of the Republic). There is also all sorts of artwork from that period
showing various Italians in muscled cuirasses and several kinds of
linothorax, so you are right about the latter being an important part of the
equation.
This doesn't even get into the fact that the vast majority of ancient
artifacts are in private collections, generally with little or no solid
provenance. And the vast majority of what's in the museums is in storage
(though of course muscled cuirasses would tend to get into the display
cases, one would expect!). It's scary to think of how much could be out
there, unknown and unpublished.
Found a couple other cuirasses online, though they could be the same ones
Connolly discusses. All from Italian graves, apparently:
http://www.geocities.com/ulfberth/Etruscan.htm
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Edpd/italicarmor.html
And just for grins, a Muscled Pectoral, very popular among the Samnites.
GOTTA get me one of those!
http://www.royalarmouries.org/extsite/view.jsp?sectionId=1317&assetId=1158
If nothing else, this shows the Italians weren't afraid to carry features of
the musculata (rather early musculature, in fact) over to other types of
armor. Note that the muscled pectoral is not just a musculata that has been
shrunk down--the small pectoral has a long history and was used alongside
full body cuirasses before the muscled look even appeared.
All these pretty pictures lead to the issue of survival, or lack thereof.
I really think it's important that Roman burial and votive customs were
different from everyone else's by the Republican period. Etruscans and
Samnites were still going for nice burials in painted tombs with the
warrior's full panoply, while the Romans cremated. Anything being
sacrificed to the gods was left in a temple, like the Greeks did, and would
be subject to later recycling or plain looting. These practices were
continued by the upper classes well into the Empire, even when votive
offerings in water or bogs were becoming common amongst the legionaries and
auxiliaries out in the provinces. Accidental loss of an officer's muscled
cuirass (no matter what material) was darn rare, and many of those cuirasses
would have been recovered immediately by either friend or foe. The rest
could have rotted away, or been turned up and lost over the next thousand
years, or still be sitting in the ground and waiting to be found! Even on
the best-known archeological sites, usually only a small percentage of the
area has been excavated. Scary again.
So my point is that even if every aristocratic officer had one or more
cuirasses, and even if they were ALL metal, a complete lack of surviving
examples today doesn't surprise me.
There's a chapter that deals with decorated muscle cuirasses in "The
World of Roman Costume" by Sebesta and Bonfante, and I took a quick look
through it recently. All I have is a rather crappy photocopy, so the photos
aren't great. But it does mention something like a hundred decorated
cuirasses shown in sculpture, so the author has clearly done some research.
If you don't have access to this book, I can at least pass along the name of
that chapter's author, and any other info about him that might be mentioned.
Sounds like he'd be worth talking to.
Actually, I was inspired to check that chapter when I was reading your
description of the Prima Porta cuirass. It kind of threw me for a moment
because I thought you were trying to say that it was the only one decorated
with scenes of people and such! Obviously you were referring only to the
specific scenes and activities being portrayed, but you might want to
clarify that section.
Seams and closures, etc., in no particular order:::
The body of the linothorax was essentially one piece, tying shut at the
left side. It was flexible enough to bend open and shut. So it makes sense
if a non-metallic cuirass has no seam on the right side. (The interesting
thing is how the shoulder flaps stick straight up when not tied! Mine don't
do that any more.) I also noticed in a couple of the later sculptures you
show how the neckline is squared. On the original linothorax, of course,
the top edge of the body is simply straight, and the sides of the neck
opening are defined by the flaps. But by the later period the whole
neckline is there, though the shape remains. Fascinating...
On the whole issue of details being lost (or added, ack!) due to artistic
stylization, the impression I get from other military items is that
stylization is starting to edge out the realism in the second century. The
troops shown in that Antonine relief are less accurate than those in
Trajan's Column, which itself is already of very debatable reliability on
such matters. But there seems to be more and more Hellenistic influence
creeping in, practically "neo-Classical", and I wouldn't be surprised if the
depictions of aristocratic armor is much more accurate than the pictures of
the grunts. There is a strong belief that most urban "propaganda" art from
the second century onward is just based on Trajan's Column, with a clearly
growing degree of "melt-down" over the years.
SO, when I see a sculpture that lacks side seams, I still tend to think
it just got left out. BUT I promptly think, Then what about all the rest of
the amazing little details they DID put in?? Okay, never mind all that,
back to Square One...
That statue with the groove down the side (Palazzo Massimo?)--It really
looks to me like the whole statue was cut in half at some point! Maybe when
the new head was added? Might be original if two slabs of stone were stuck
together to make the statue (bizarre idea, no idea if anything like that was
ever done!). Or maybe it was cut apart during recovery, or some later time?
Wacky. I don't think it's meant to portray a seam, but of course it could
be where a seam was portrayed at some point!
Hey, on the rounded tabs on the headless statue in Palazzo Massimo, there
is a short raised thingy near the top of each. Seems to be a vestigial
hinge tube, which as I recall are much more clearly shown on some earlier
statues. I always assumed that those were metal tabs hinged directly to the
cuirass, but of course on the later ones they look more like part of the
subarmalis, especially since they're all connected in a row along their top
edges.
Molded leather--There's no real need for it to be hardened or boiled.
Leather can be sculpted and more layers applied, and we know that in the
middle ages they were adding decorations in gesso. You could even apply
decorations of embossed or thinly cast metal (heck, even if the armor is
metal). As you say, there are all manner of "drawer pulls" and other metal
doodads that could have been armor parts.
I could swear that somewhere, way back when, I saw a picture of the
Louvre relief as it was found--no heads on the guys in front, the middle of
the left-hand man missing. You can see the diagonal flaw running across his
lower chest, and a horizontal line through his pteruges. That belt he has
is SO bogus!
Oh, nitpick on belt terminology: The plated military belt is a balteus,
though for many years (and often still now) was called a cingulum. That
seems to be a later term, 3rd century AD or so. We call the straps hanging
down in front the apron, but yeah, they usually have metal terminals.
Candelabrum--can't quite see in the photos, but could that be an army
signum?
Roman military organization: Yes, the Republic had a citizen army, with
the eligible men (landowners) supplying their own gear. Marius generally
gets the credit for throwing recruitment open to any citizen, landed or not,
and built his own private army that way, at his own expense. He may in fact
have supplied his troops with equipment, BUT this did NOT become standard
practice! We tend to talk about "state-supplied" gear in the late Republic
and early Empire, but in fact the troops are paying for everything out of
their salaries over the course of their enlistments. We even have letters
from soldiers asking their families to send them weapons and such! There is
clearly a regular arms industry, probably lots of local sub-contractors,
etc., and there is evidence for gear being made and stored in legionary
fortresses during the first century AD. But just what the requirements were
or how "issuing" was done, we really don't know. Items like belts and
daggers might have been personally acquired, but they still follow very
strict fashions. It seems to be that troops were equipped to a uniform
level, but not necessarily to a uniform appearance.
The third century AD is when actual state-issue of gear begins. It was
made in centralized factories, different areas specializing in different
items.
Legionaries were supposed to be citizens, though it is said that many
eastern legions enlisted provincials and simply granted them citizenship
when they signed up. Auxiliaries were usually non-citizen provincials, and
were often granted citizenship upon discharge but not always. There were
also a couple auxiliary cohorts of Italian citizens, and some other
auxiliary units won citizenship en masse for valor.
I wouldn't say that "many" recruits could hope to become centurions,
though it was certainly a goal. Some centurions were direct appointments
from the equestrian class, and those were probably fast-tracked for
promotion through the hierarchy, more likely to reach the highest ranks.
But for those starting on the bottom, it was a better hope for social
mobility than most would get in civilian life!
Egads, this has gone on way too long! I did a few tweaks to my
Organization and Officers page a week or two ago, but didn't add a link to
your site cuz I didn't know if you were ready yet. So I guess we'll talk
some more!
Great stuff, and keep it coming!
Vale,
Matthew
----------------------
On 3/14/05 11:35 AM, "Travis Lee Clark"
Subject: Re: Oops!: Updated page on the lorica musculata Date: March 26, 2005 4:54:08 PM CET To: mamt@lrcm.usuhs.mil On Mar 25, 2005, at 9:19 PM, Matthew Amt wrote: Ave, Travis! Mea culpa for the long delay, too many things that needed to be done "now". You may know that story! I take it you don't do Roman for your day job either? This is fun for me, totally done in my spare time, so I totally understand. Now for the critical bits, mostly either questions/clarifications, or nit-picky less important things. But a couple bigger points. Fire away. Since I tend to think of the Roman period as starting in 753 BC or at latest around 500, these would all count, though I certainly agree that they aren't anywhere near the IMPERIAL period (nor even the end of the Republic). Yeah I reread this and it should be a lot clearer. Two issues. First, "Roman" is both a tribe and then later a nationality. From the 8th to the 5th C. the cultural powerhouse of the region is Etruria, who control most of Rome, until the first Brutus throws them out with the last king, Tarquin Superbus in 533/34 and establishes the early republic. Is that a Roman period or an Etruscan period? Good question with no easy answer. Also, even when the Romans are expanding their dominion the area under their control is not "Roman" but Sabine, Latin, Samnite and a dozen other Italic tribes, most of which have imported armor styles from the Greeks and maintain cultural independence from the Romans for some time. Roman nationality isn't even extended to all the Italian tribes until Claudius, but by that time all of these groups, though ethnically not Roman were culturally Roman. As far as I know, most of the examples of cuirasses are found in Italic contexts, not specifically Roman ones, from before this acculturation process. Finding a bronze cuirass anywhere in Italy in the second century BC or later would clinch it for me, since this is well into the "Roman" period when these groups were culturally Roman. But that isn't the case. This doesn't appear to be a tradition the Romans got until rather late. Before that, as near as I can tell, (and in this I may just be wrong and need to look again) all the others seem to be Italic in context, which begs the question. How come all of these other Italian tribes adopt muscled cuirasses, and the Romans don't? It's just baffling. Cremation is the norm across the region, though most of the Northern tribes also practice some form of inhumation and include grave goods even with cremains. Romans don't generally, though there are isolated cases of funerary goods, it isn't nearly as common. So maybe they did, but the armor got passed down, used up, melted down and otherwise destroyed, while the other traditions preserved it. In short, I don't think any of these examples are close enough in either date or region to argue for the existence of Roman muscled cuirasses. Secondly, the greater portion of examples of the cuirasses in art are all in the late Republic. 150 BC and forward. If you add this all up, there is no continuity, in my opinion, between the bronze muscled cuirass of the hellenistic period and the later lorica. The later 3rd C. is a big hole frankly. What the heck is going on in Roman armor in the 3rd C!! That's when these things were first conceived and there is precious little info about any of it. Most of the art is after that and before that I'm not seeing any examples of the lorica. That's a pretty significant historical break. I'm open to the idea that these few examples are Roman or influence the Romans, but how come we don't see examples in decidedly Roman Contexts in decidedly Roman periods? It's just baffling. I went to the Villa Guilia the other day, the Etruscan Museum here, and I've been to the Gregorian Etruscan Museum in the Vatican. There are endless examples of Etruscan and Italic armor, in art and artifacts, case after case of the stuff!! Samnite, Latin, Sabine, Villanovan...it's all over the place. There's even a few examples in the Museum of UPenn in Philly and a bunch in the Met in NY. But nothing Roman. It's far easier to recreate the panoply of a 7th or 6th BC Etruscan than it is the Armor of a 2nd C. BC (or even AD for that matter) Roman! Why that should be the case just baffles me. I can only guess that there was some strong cultural practices, techniques, materials, religious beliefs or combination of the above, that precluded the preservation of the armor, but exactly how just escapes me. There is also all sorts of artwork from that period showing various Italians in muscled cuirasses and several kinds of linothorax, so you are right about the latter being an important part of the equation. Thanks, I should cite Bishop, I just reread something of his and he said as much though I didn't get it from him. Oh well, I only care if I'm original in Byzantine studies. This doesn't even get into the fact that the vast majority of ancient artifacts are in private collections, generally with little or no solid provenance. And the vast majority of what's in the museums is in storage (though of course muscled cuirasses would tend to get into the display cases, one would expect!). It's scary to think of how much could be out there, unknown and unpublished. Bastards!! Everyone of them. They should be hung up by their thumbs until they fork it over. (Just kidding, but only slightly) Actually even if they did it wouldn't matter since the private art scene is contaminated by fakes too good to spot and none of this stuff has provenance so it's very hard to determine age and period. Looking at the artwork, the fasteners for the shoulder harnesses are very simple so I'm sure we have some of them mislabeled somewhere. Found a couple other cuirasses online, though they could be the same ones Connolly discusses. All from Italian graves, apparently: http://www.geocities.com/ulfberth/Etruscan.htm http://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Edpd/italicarmor.html And just for grins, a Muscled Pectoral, very popular among the Samnites. GOTTA get me one of those! http://www.royalarmouries.org/extsite/view.jsp?sectionId=1317&assetId=1158 If nothing else, this shows the Italians weren't afraid to carry features of the musculata (rather early musculature, in fact) over to other types of armor. Note that the muscled pectoral is not just a musculata that has been shrunk down--the small pectoral has a long history and was used alongside full body cuirasses before the muscled look even appeared. That's a cool one!! I hadn't seen it before. Is the pectoral a native Samnite device that adopts the muscled form? That would be cool if it was. That would augment my theory a lot if it panned out. Thanks!! Here, check out this one from the Upenn Museum. I love this one, nothing to do with the topic but a cool pectoral from the Villanovan period. It's the one in the background. http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/exhibitsfeature.php It's all geometric design and has a cool rib right down the center. All these pretty pictures lead to the issue of survival, or lack thereof. I really think it's important that Roman burial and votive customs were different from everyone else's by the Republican period. I agree. I think that explains the lack of evidence. I wish their cultural practices had been different, that way we wouldn't have to argue, but even that is kinda fun. So my point is that even if every aristocratic officer had one or more cuirasses, and even if they were ALL metal, a complete lack of surviving examples today doesn't surprise me. I have to admit that it's possible but I would hope SOMETHING might turn up, but the vast majority of armor anywhere in the mediterranean is preserved in funerary contexts, so you might be right. If you don't have access to this book, I can at least pass along the name of that chapter's author, and any other info about him that might be mentioned. Sounds like he'd be worth talking to. Sounds great, pass it on. Cornelius Vermeule (spelling?) has catalogued nearly all the cuirassed statues in the Greco-Roman world. Quite a feat! Unfortunately, his book isn't on the shelf here in Rome or I would look up quite a few things. Obviously you were referring only to the specific scenes and activities being portrayed, but you might want to clarify that section. yeah you're right, the writing could be better. Again, not my day job. I'll fix it. Seams and closures, etc., in no particular order::: The body of the linothorax was essentially one piece, tying shut at the left side. It was flexible enough to bend open and shut. So it makes sense if a non-metallic cuirass has no seam on the right side. I had thought about that. In most of these statues the right arm is raised in salute or in the typical roman gesture for speaking. The left arm is down, either covered with the paudalamentum or holding the parazonium (spelling?) Which means that if they closed like the linothorax, they would have seams on the left, and the statuary wouldn't show it because it would be covered up!! Quite inconvenient, but possible. However looking at a few examples, where I can clearly see the left side, it doesn't appear to have side seams either, so maybe not. (The interesting thing is how the shoulder flaps stick straight up when not tied! Mine don't do that any more.) I also noticed in a couple of the later sculptures you show how the neckline is squared. On the original linothorax, of course, the top edge of the body is simply straight, and the sides of the neck opening are defined by the flaps. But by the later period the whole neckline is there, though the shape remains. Fascinating... Actually I was looking at necklines again today. The square ones with the higher neck section, which is vestigial, is the most common, but the variety in neck openings is huge. I think you are right though, the neck lines of the Roman cuirass are inspired by the Hellenistic linothorax. Most of the earlier Greek bronze muscled cuirasses have round ones. So I think you're right. They are trying to mimic a variety of armors. The Lorica musculata is really an odd duck. It is the equivalent of fantasy armor, borrowing from whatever tickles their fancy. There is a strong belief that most urban "propaganda" art from the second century onward is just based on Trajan's Column, with a clearly growing degree of "melt-down" over the years. Well the Byzantinist in me is going to have to smack you with a wet noodle for that "Melt-down" crack. It's not meltdown, it's a change in preference. Romans have a long tradition of both simplistic abstract primitive or nativist styles and realism. Both exist during all periods. By the Imperial period, the realism becomes the "official" style but Freeman gravestones are still done in that almost caricature style. Somehow, not really sure how, the caricature style overtakes the realistic style by the Mid second century, but it's a slow transition. By the time of the 5th century we have pagan senators making private art in the realistic style, (thinking of the Nicomachi dyptych which looks like it could have been made in the 5th C. BC and it was actually made in the fifth C. AD!) and Emperors making stuff in the more primitive or native style. So it's a total reversal. I think that by that time the idea was that you wanted to convey spiritual aspects of the emperor's (and subsequently Christ and the saints) personality that are harder to express in realistic terms. that explains the larger eyes, the frontal views, the lack of emotion or delineation in the muscles. It's not a meltdown, it's a shift and private art continues in the classical tradition until the 8thC! For more on this I would suggest Thomas Matthews, The Clash of the Gods, and Jans Elsner's works. SO, when I see a sculpture that lacks side seams, I still tend to think it just got left out. BUT I promptly think, Then what about all the rest of the amazing little details they DID put in?? Okay, never mind all that, back to Square One... Oh gosh it's a headache isn't it!! I think some details became VERY important, while others were less so. Unfortunately they never wrote down which ones, so it's all just guessing on our part. That statue with the groove down the side (Palazzo Massimo?)--It really looks to me like the whole statue was cut in half at some point! Maybe when the new head was added? Might be original if two slabs of stone were stuck together to make the statue (bizarre idea, no idea if anything like that was ever done!). Or maybe it was cut apart during recovery, or some later time? Wacky. I don't think it's meant to portray a seam, but of course it could be where a seam was portrayed at some point! Well it's not two pieces of stone, it's one piece of stone with a groove. The head is separate but that was common in the Roman era, these things would get produced in advance and then the head would get slapped on when it sold. The groove follows the side exactly where the side seam would be. Interesting side note. On a lot of modern reconstructions, the seam is just straight, since that 's the easiest way to do it, but none of the seams on the statues are straitht, they follow the contour of the body and are further back under the arm and closer to the front at the waist. A lot of work, but there it is. This groove is the same way. I can't imagine why they would need to do that though. My best guess is that something was there, and it needed the groove for it to be inserted, the caption was utterly unhelpful, even by Italian standards. Hey, on the rounded tabs on the headless statue in Palazzo Massimo, there is a short raised thingy near the top of each. Seems to be a vestigial hinge tube, which as I recall are much more clearly shown on some earlier statues. I always assumed that those were metal tabs hinged directly to the cuirass, but of course on the later ones they look more like part of the subarmalis, especially since they're all connected in a row along their top edges. Yeah, there is another example of this on a cuirassed statue of Domitian in the Fogg Museum at Harvard. It's on the Perseus website, (which is expanding into Roman Stuff!) They have lots of pages on it for some reason. It looks like some sort of hinge or lacing. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/image?lookup=1997.03.3870 I think the tongue pteurges may have been separately made or molded and laced together. If true, this could be a precursor to Byzantine lamellar Armor, which would be exciting. Molded leather--There's no real need for it to be hardened or boiled. Leather can be sculpted and more layers applied, and we know that in the middle ages they were adding decorations in gesso. If you get leather wet, you can even mold it by hand and press it out from the back like repousee, if you are talented enough. Getting the really fine and tight details though would mean a mold and pressing it, and that's easier if it's boiled or treated. I think it would be really elegant if they did it this way, but applique is just as possible I have to admit. You could even apply decorations of embossed or thinly cast metal (heck, even if the armor is metal). As you say, there are all manner of "drawer pulls" and other metal doodads that could have been armor parts. Actually, there is a lot of evidence for applique' bronze plates. There's tons of thin bronze applique and gilded applique material that was attached to vases, furniture all kinds of stuff. I don't have any examples at my fingertips though. I've never seen anyone associate this material with armor, but that might be lack of imagination on the part of art historians. I could swear that somewhere, way back when, I saw a picture of the Louvre relief as it was found--no heads on the guys in front, the middle of the left-hand man missing. You can see the diagonal flaw running across his lower chest, and a horizontal line through his pteruges. That belt he has is SO bogus! Well that's what I thought but the EUR museum here has their plaster cast of the same relief with exactly the same reconstruction. They have another reconstruction of a Praetorian with that belt, but who knows why. I added a correction to that page. I've never seen a belt, other than the officer's knot, over a muscled cuirass so it makes me very suspicious but at some point some scholar must've thought it reliable. Candelabrum--can't quite see in the photos, but could that be an army signum? Actually Signae do show up, but not as frequently, It is definitely a candelabrum, it doesn't have the disci or any of the other features of a signum, but a signum is not out of the question. Actually a candelabrum isn't just a lamp stand for an oil lamp. Most are elaborate bronze things with lots of volutes and decoration and only one large lamp up top. It's a religious symbol and used as the "focus" or sacred fire or as a sort of portable incense altar. Incense and libations were often poured over it. Regarding your info on Roman military equipment and how it was procured, very helpful. I said it was all foggy recollections from my own memory, so I'm not surprised I missed a lot of nuances. I will update the page accordingly. In general, what would you add to that section to clarify it? I think the site is ready for it's "beta" test, so start linking to it. I will add the corrections and clarifications you request and will throw it out there and see what sticks. Thanks a ton. BTW - Watched the Passion by Mel Gibson last night, since it was Good Friday. When you are watching that and the only thing you think to do is criticize the Romans Armor, you know you have a problem. Vale!! Travis. |
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