calceus patricius, senatorius, equester - looking for input

[tlclark]

Salve... and that is SALVE!!! :wink:
Maybe I should stick to AVE... I don't think I can screw that one up!

The vender who made the "mulleus" was Terry Nix, this is his version:



He appears to be basing his on the Caesar statue too but, I'd still LOVE to see a real close up of the statue or a real close up of the drawing.

I checked my IE Favorites and it was actually Travis Lee Clark that called this style of boots "Equestrian Boots" so it's all Travis' fault!!! :wink:
http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica/parts.htm

No. It's the fault of art historians!

Terms vary by discipline. Back when people started naming these parts, they did several things: They invented new latin terms (like the segmentata) and they also took historical terms from literature (such as parazonium and equestrian boots) and applied them to items they saw in art.

The problem is that we have no idea if they really are what romans would have considered to be equestrian boots or not. In military literature they have argued endlessly over the matter. Art historians could care less. What we care about is what do you call that thing and what is it for, it has to have a name and the name works. We still stick to the same terms laid down in the 18th C. We still call all these round temples, Temples to Fortuna, based on an equally spurious interpreation of a verse out of Vitruvius. We now know that very few of these tholoi are in fact temples to fortuna, but the names stick.

So, to be clear, I use the terms that art historians use, but they are largely arbitrary. I think that somewhere there is a disclaimer on the site that says as much, and if not I should add one.

[Martin Moser]

Hi Travis,

thanks for the clarification on your part, and you are of course right that we practically cannot be sure about the naming of pretty much any type of shoe (no, not even for the caliga), all the more so since name/shoe types relations seem to have shifted and changed over the centuries.

For my original question and this thread I'd like to stick with my, or rather Goette's naming, which he based on the identities/social status of the figures shown wearing those various types. Even then, there are exceptions but on the whole I find this "system" is the easiest to bring across what I mean for my purposes.

As for the mulleus/Equestrian boot (i.e. the more or less openwork high sandal with fur and animal head), Goette says that this type of boot almost exclusively appears with either statues of gods or emperors (he names one exception from a sarcophagus scene) - Travis, what is your opinion/experience here, have you seen it with "ordinary" officers, i.e. with officers other than emperors or members of their direct family?

[AntonivsMarivsCongianocvs]

Ave Travis….

Travis Lee Clark... called this style of boots "Equestrian Boots" so it's all Travis' fault!!! :wink:

No. It's the fault of art historians!

I trust you know I was only kidding with that silly comment! <hence the eye wink> :wink:

Concerning Caesar's "Equestrian Boots", over in the other forum : link from old RAT Gioi (Comerus Gallus Romus) has been able to take extremely close up photos of the boots Julius Caesar is wearing and add his interpretation of their construction too!

I nominated him for a Gold phalera medal for this one! He really went out of his way to be helpful!!!

[tlclark]

As for the mulleus/Equestrian boot (i.e. the more or less openwork high sandal with fur and animal head), Goette says that this type of boot almost exclusively appears with either statues of gods or emperors (he names one exception from a sarcophagus scene) - Travis, what is your opinion/experience here, have you seen it with "ordinary" officers, i.e. with officers other than emperors or members of their direct family?

I'm pretty sure that the boot is not an equestrian boot, although whatever an equester is is entirely debatable. The attribution is made (in art history circles as least) that the boot appears on cavalry officers. The supposition is that it is a mark of the cavalry, hence equestrian class and then comes to be adopted by all officers, generals, gods, etc. There is no way to verify this causal relationship however.

I can say that saying this shoe only appears on emperors and gods is patently false. This is the so-called "indians all walk in a single file (or at least the one I saw did)" fallacy. It is true that it is prominent in images of gods and emperors and generals, but it is also misleading, because those subjects predominant nearly all life-size statuary. Gods, emperors and generals are pretty much the ONLY miltary categories of people that had large statuary, so that's impossilbe to say. It appears, trutfully, on large relief panels and sculpture in the round, regardless of their role. The large trajanic reliefs of cavalry men from the vatican has the men wearing the open-toed boot. They are clearly not specifc portraits of gods, generals or members of the imperial family. They are rather allegories of the cavalry. In small historical reliefs, not even the emperor wears it. And in Marcus Aurelius' statuary, large and small, he almost NEVER wears it, and is more often seen in the typical calcei, an anomaly.

So if there's any deductions to be made it's this... Not that the equestrian/Mulleus shows up only on emperors, their family, gods or generals but rather that the mulleus only shows up on big fancy sculpture. Smaller than lifesize reliefs or historical narratives show much more mundane footwear, even for the emperor. So there appears to be a difference in treatment according to the genre and medium, rather than the subject or his caste status.

What this means is tricky. I see two possibilities.
1. It is an artistic device, probably of hellenistic origin where similar footwear is employed by gods, hunstman, and cavalry officers. It is a classical allusion to their military and cultural heritage appropriate to memorial and monumental scultpure, but not historical ones.

If that's the case, it's possible noboby wore them. It may be purely ceremonial and may not even exist at all except as an artistic device.

2. It isn't an artistic device and was worn, but only in ceremonial occasions, as all the narrative reliefs suggest more mundane footwear.

If that's the case, I see no problem with people with people wearing them as long as they demonstrate that they are wealthy luxury items.

Personally I think they exist as luxury items and not caste items, ostentatious boots for the upper classes. how upper class is a pure guess but I suspect any wealthy equestrian could wear them. The anomaly of Marcus Aurelius however is a head-scratcher, but then all of his art is strange for one reason or another. Perhaps he wore more common footwear to emphasize a personal trait. It had to be a decision of the imperial workshops since there is near uniformity in the depiction. I would like to credit it to MA's stoicism but we could never know.

[Marcus Caecilius Avitus]

Martin,

Photos attached (at last). Please ignore the modern socks.

The pattern is derived from a statuary depiction, brilliantly illustrated in Graham Sumners Roman Military Clothing (1).

[AntonivsMarivsCongianocvs]

Ave Martin,

Great looking boots, did you make them? ... and could you post a photo of the statue they're based on?

Although they're not Caesar's boots (as soon as my Parazonium is done, the boots are my next project), I have definitely that style boot in sculpture, I just can't find any examples at this time.

UPDATE: Got it

[Marcus Caecilius Avitus]

Anthony,

another interpretation of the above statue is that the footwear depicted was semi-open (toes on display). One of the chaps in the UK 8th Augustun legion has some calceus made to the open pattern and they look really good. Unfortunately I don't have a picture