Cavalry Tunic with woven belt pictures

[jvrjenivs]

Is this quote based on S.Hoss?

No, it's my personal opinion/conclusion from my research into the topic.

Off hand I do not know of any evidence for Roman soldiers using tablet woven belts at all, for cavalry liking colours anymore than infantry, other than the single reference from Arrian regarding the sports tunic, or an abundant range of colour designs. So if I am completely wrong I would be very interested to know of any references for this.

The only reference I've off hand now (as I have just been reading that book is the use of tablet belts in the recent 'war and worship'. I've to look up the references for the lower rhine area though, but I think it was in either Nicolay's Armed batavians or Roymans' Ethnic identity and imperial power. Furthermore, I did my research into the Batavian ALAE, which in my opinion includes lots of local influences, so I always also look into foreign clothing traditions, so include germanic finds.

As for the colour statement, I based that on many more than clothing alone. Of course we have the reference from Arrian, but if we look at the helmets, especially from my region, we've the Kops Plateau helmets with horsehair decorations. These decorations seems to have been multi-coloured. Furthermore the masks, decorated umbo etc all seem to have been decorated with multi-coloured patterns (in silver and gold), as well as pugiones, sword scabbards, etc. This multi-coloured decorative thing is also put forward by Markus Junkelmann when doing his cavalry research.

The tunic made by Claire appears to have been based on typical clothing finds from Germany and Denmark so presumably nothing specifically military or cavalry just the basic clothing fashion of the time. It is of a style that would become later become popular in the third century Roman Army and which probably evolved from garments like this, although without the tablet woven decoration. The third century decoration was a mixture of the old Roman tunic clavi with eastern styles like the arrow designs and the orbiculi.

I totally agree with you about this fashion changes described here. You're the expert, but I think we have enough information to put more colours into clothing/kit than was previously done (well, you know my kit)