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

[Robert Vermaat]

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? And also, would it be likely for a Roman soldier in a basic unit to wear a gilded helmet and scale armour, while the norm would have been basic mail and iron helmet (perhaps silvered)?

Yes, because uniformity did not exist in Roman units. Of course when taken as a whole, the quality of equipment would be higher in the elite units. The main difference would be the quality of the equipment (instead of perhaps the expensive decoration), while limitanei would perhaps not even have armour for every miles.

Regarding the muscled cuirass debates, I still find it troublesome what to believe. 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? Then there’s the aspect of artistic impression allowing artist the freedom to deviate from realistic depiction and merely showing the essence of what they believe to be a Roman soldier or a Roman outfit/helmet or weaponry.

There’s always the debate about artistic license, and Hellenistic imagery. But we see the musculata also (re)appearing in Byzantine art, and I don’t think we should stretch the influence of Hellenistic art so far. Therefore I tend to agree up to a point. We should also not forget that a musculata, whether a metal or a leather one (yes, we should condider that, too) is far cheaper than a squamata or a hamate, and easier to maintain. It’s after all a large breastplate, no more. And this would indeed fit into a picture of hard economic times and the need to equip an army.

Also, would a muscled cuirass not be regarded as something archaic? Usually elite troops and officers would fit such an outfit which is linked to a nostalgic and heroic/mythic past, which places them in a certain tradition. The way I see it muscled cuirasses were very probably worn but only by officers, elite troops, bodyguards and generals/emperors.

The gilded and elaborately decorated ones, sure. But when we step away from the ‘gilded sixpack’ image of a musculata worn by an Augustus and instead think of a much more basic model – why not?