Felt Armour

[Sean M]

Big sculptures were made by whole teams of sculptors. Its possible that either some sculptors liked to texture their mail and others left it to the painters to deal with, or that they had been told to use one technique for the archers and another for the cavalry, based on whatever model they were using. The reasons for that could be as simple as one archer with light mail with small rings and one horsemen with heavy mail with big rings being chosen as artists' models, or the artist who created the pattern book for the archers representing mail one way, and the artist who created the pattern book for the horsemen representing it another way.

Its not clear how many live soldiers the sculptors of Trajan's Column in Rome had ever seen, and we don't know what details were only indicated in paint.

[Len Parker]

Sounds like a good explanation. I hadn't thought about different ring size.

[Sean M]

There are also people who think that sculptures from the city of Rome might be influenced by theatre costumes.

A lot of Roman art shows soldiers in solid breastplates with flaps sticking out at the armholes and below the waist, and the flaps must be attached to something. There are some really detailed Roman sculptures which show 'armour-shaped objects' that are flexible, but I think its hard to look at beaten-up limestone sculptures and be sure what is being depicted.

If the Romans had felt armour, then the archers on Trajan's Column could be wearing felt armour, but they could be wearing other things too. Before Roman Army Studies were a thing, artists often assumed that they were wearing some kind of leather jacket, but there is not great evidence for any kind of armour made of big pieces of leather in the Roman empire.

[Sean M]

Over on Twitter Mike Bishop or Jon Coulston has a list of the evidence for padded arming garments in ancient Roman world.
https://nitter.net/EquipmentRoman/statu ... 99214300#m

- The thoracomachus in 'De Rebus Bellicis'
- The subarmalis (under-armour-thing?) in the Historia Augusta, a kind of ancient mockumentary, and waxed tablets from Vindolanda and Carlisle in Britain
- The Late Roman text on strategy which says you should wear a garment one finger thick under your armour to make the armour comfortable and stop missiles from reaching your body
- The Ludovisi statue of Antoninus Pius
- The tombstone of Severius Acceptus
- Len's relief of Mars adorning an inscription from High Rochester https://x-legio.com/en/wiki/subarmalis

Roman army geeks can point you to all the books with really optimistic interpretations of art which is either crude and damaged or by sculptors who had never seen a soldier in full battle kit. I don't want to name names.

[Len Parker]

These barbarians look like they might be wearing felt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk_o ... 05part.jpg Compare it to the modern Greek Sarakatsani cloak: https://www.academia.edu/75548924/DRAFT ... _id=142749

[Len Parker]

They’re calling that a kendouklon. Not armour but worn on top. They did wear felt alone. Scroll down to pages 50/51 for Leo’s original text and translation: https://www.academia.edu/83216258/Byzan ... ry_soldier This would be at least 500 years past the sculpture of the barbarians.

[Sean M]

The garments of the kneeling barbarians on the obelisk of Theodosius do look like the shepherd's cloaks in the web article by Ioannis Dandoulakis.

I had a look at the dictionary of Byzantine Greek and they have:

κέντουκλον (lat. centunclum) Filz(decke) "Felt, felt cloak"

And list examples from Emperor Maurice around 600 to Nikephoros II Phokos before 969. I think it might be the garment which Maurice says cavalry should have to protect their armour from rusting in the rain and flashing in the sun. And emperor Leo mentions soldiers wearing a neurikon made from kentouklon in place of a lorica. The anonymous treatise on generalship from either the 6th century or the 9th century says infantry should wear a cloak (himation) at least a finger thick under their armour to make it more comfortable and prevent weapons from reaching their flesh.

The quilted sleeve of St. Martin in France has an open armpit, and seems to have been designed so you could stick your arm out through the armhole and leave the sleeve hanging like in some of the Byzantine military manuals.