Late Roman troops: \"normal\" vs. elite

[Razor]

Would it be likely for a Roman soldier in a palatina unit to wear a basic helmet and mail armour while his collegue in the same unit would have worn a gilded helmet and scale armour?

Apparently there's a remark in the Theodosian Code that 60% of helmets produced by state fabricae should have gilding and decoration - possibly these were intended for the palatine units, while the undecorated ones went to the limitanei?

That’s a lot of helmets for palatine units and not so much for the more numerous limitanei units… Still would you say it’s possible that a soldier of a palatine unit would look pretty basic, while his colleague of the same unit would look more ‘extravagant’?

Unfortunately I can’t find the detail of the arch of Diocletian showing that specific soldier you’re talking about.

Here it is, in the version by Karen Dixon, Late Roman Army, p.99:

[attachment=4743]ArchofDiocletian.jpg[/attachment]

(there's a redrawn version in Travis & Travis' Roman Body Armour that I think shows differences in the scale armour.)

I remember that fragment from an Osprey book. In there they’re depicted as two soldiers wearing long-sleeved mail. Thanks for that!

Regarding the muscled cuirass debates, I still find it troublesome what to believe. (To which monuments are you referring specifically?)

I started a brief thread about this topic a while back: (Musculata: Late Roman Legionary Armour?), but it didn't get far. There's some more discussion in Late Roman Officer and Lorica Musculata.

Do reliefs and monuments always show what a Roman soldier looked like exactly at the time? Or are they merely showing Roman soldiers in the way people would expect (or want) a Roman soldier to look like at the time?

That's partly my point - earlier monuments usually showed segmentata, which however widely worn it actually was, was clearly what the public of the day thought that Roman soldiers wore. Later monuments show musculata in the same way - so while it may not have been ubiquitous, people at the time probably thought it signified a legionary soldier. Other details on these sculptures are quite individual and characteristically late Roman, so the armour is probably not just 'archaicising'. Scale and mail shirts of the day appear to have looked quite different to a muscle cuirass, as we see on the Diocletian and Galerius arches.

Reliefs and monuments are indeed difficult to read. I agree with you that some monuments do show specific features and details from a specific period. But can these accurate details not also be used alongside idealized depictions of Roman soldiers? I've also never come across a depiction of the Berkasovo style helmet in monuments and reliefs. It's a bit speculating here but perhaps they were considered too 'un-Roman'?

With regard to the archaic nature I didn’t mean to say that they were non-existent at the time of the erection of the monuments but rather that they would have been kept for certain ranks and elite troops who themselves would stand in a certain Roman tradition by being dressed in a lorica musculata.

Hi Razor,

The images of the armor sets and helmets on the first post are not visible, can you re-post them?

Thanks,

Angelo

Angelo, you have to click the ‘Warning:Spoiler!’ text and the images will appear. I re-uploaded the second image showing the helmets as it didn’t fully appear.