Gambesons in roman times?

[Nathan Ross]

Scale armour aligned vertically... The artist may simply have wanted to show two different styles of mail.

I must say I am not seeing that - those look like horizontal bands to me... One of those eye-of-the-beholder things I suppose!

And I can't imagine what 'different style of mail' could possibly look like that either...

To say anything more without corroborating evidence is irresponsible.

That seems unnecessarily legalistic

Some kind of armour is certainly what we're looking at, and I don't think it's at all wrong to speculate within certain boundaries. But we are clearly looking at these things quite differently, and holding them to quite different standards of evidence, so it does not seem fruitful to continue debating the issue.

it may be what the sculptor thought quilted armour looked like

Possibly so. I notice he was quite capable of depicting scale armour (on the two figures to the left of this one) in an exaggerated way, and various civilian garments too, so I don't think we can assume a sudden bout of incompetence here. He knew what he was depicting (or thought he did), and we do not - whether his idea of what it looked like is at all close to what it actually looked like lies in the realm of the unknown...!