Tents, to be linen or not to be linen.

[Salvianus]

It does not matter that linen tents were used later -- in the Roman period they do not seem to be. If you can prove otherwise, then I'm sure we'd all be interested to see the proof.

I don't believe there is any proof. There is what I consider to be evidence for textile tents in the Roman period, but it is the Late Roman period, & I'm not sure that it would be considered relevant to the period in question here - late C1st-early C2nd I take it Bryan? To my mind the case that the early imperial army used leather panelled tents is watertight :wink:

However, I would say, in the murky realms of interpreting art, I would normally expect if two objects on the same section of a relief are treated differently, it does suggest a difference in them - suggests, nothing more, it could still be the work of different artisans, or perhaps the panelled tent was painted up in the Stuart tartan of legionary tents, whilst the other was in auxiliary polkadots. :lol:

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Ste,

is what I consider to be evidence for textile tents in the Roman period, but it is the Late Roman period

Do go on.

[Craig Gascoigne]

Has anyone done any pratical test under different weath conditions.

Having tried to sleep under leather tents in hot & humid ( 37C plus) environment like we have here. We found once the need for shade is gone i.e the sun went down. Even with the sides rolled up it was more comfortable to sleep out side the tent. The leather becomes like sauna a bit.

While I agree all the finds tent are of leather in hot humid environment you be throwing people out their homes fairly quickly to take them over if you had spend weeks under leather and I guess linen too.

[Malleus]

Since tents made of (goat?)leather are currently for sale, as well as canvas tents, what ARE the weights respectively?

Postumus Junius Malleus

Stephen Pollack

[M. Demetrius]

A canvas "Papilio" around 9 ft square will weigh around 25 lbs. Don't know about the poundage of leather, but it's a lot heavier, for sure.

[Salvianus]

Do go on.

We Late Romans have a different perspective: instead of looking for more achievable alternatives to the well established goatskin panel papilio, we have to ask is there any evidence closer to our dateline (400AD in our case) than circa 100AD? Our main sources are outlined very briefly in my leaflet:

http://www.comitatus.net/Documents/Comi ... ters-2.pdf

To expand, again briefly, the small C5th wedge tents may well be leather, but are not depicted as panelled, whilst they do have other lines suggestive of turned back hems and large sheets, which do fit Mauricius' C6th description better (which echo some of C.J. Caesar's unsatisfactory makeshift 'clothing' arrangements). The large tent of Achilles is clearly cloth drapery, not the built structure described in Homer (and happens to look like to the long standing idea of an officer's tent from Trajan's column, which might be your best bet to look at for the early empire). Incidently the rough & ready mosaic awning looks very much like the sails in the background, to the rectilinear lines and the suggestion of a boom still anchoring the top, simply unshiped & lashed to the building.

The other main evidence is linguistic. I can't quote chapter and verse off hand, but looking at Ammianus' usage it seems to me that some papilio were used, probably the hide tents still refered to in the idiomatic expression sub pellibus but differentiated from other types of shelter, tents and tabernacles. This is echoed in Jerome's usage derived from the Greek skene etc. related to skinos etc. 'shade'. In brief, I believe the tabernaculum is a makeshift field shelter inclusive of awnings, sunshades and roofed over walls as per C1st Judea and the key difference in Ammianus is that 'proper' tents were still made of goatskin panels while cloak, cloth and sailcloth shelters were regarded as a tabernaculum.

Perhaps I'll be able to go into it more fully shortly, hope that's of interest.

Ste

[M. Demetrius]

more fully shortly

:lol: :!: Great word choice! I love it!

[Salvianus]

:lol:

[Salvianus]

Civilian linen 'tents' from the late Republic:

Nam in ipso aditu atque ore portus, ubi primum ex alto sinus ab litore ad urbem inflectitur, tabernacula carbaseis intenta velis conlocabat. huc ex illa domo praetoria, quae regis Hieronis fuit, sic emigrabat ut eum per illos dies nemo extra illum locum videre posset. in eum autem ipsum locum aditus erat nemini, nisi qui aut socius aut minister libidinis esse posset.

For at the very entrance and mouth of the harbour, where first the bay begins to curve from the shore of the open sea towards the city, he pitched tents of fine linen curtains; thither he migrated from the praetorian palace which had belonged to king Hiero, and lived here so that during the whole summer no one ever saw him out of his tent. And to that tent no one had access unless he was either a boon companion, or a minister of his lust.
MT Cicero, Second Oration against Verres, Book 5, XXX, trans ed. C. D. Yonge

Veli is the same word for sails which might recall the Barbarini mosaic again, but given the 'fine linen', length of habitation and opulence Cicero is playing up, I am happier with 'curtains'. I would avoid the last two 'tent's (inserted for clarity) personally and, in fact, I prefer 'shelter' for tabernaculum, but not 'awnings': these were clearly enclosed enough to accommodate a praetor's household for the summer, and provide privacy for his, er, energetic lifestyle. :roll:

I like the linguistic intrigue of this topic and could happily write a paper on it. Would anyone be interested in publishing such a thing? Has it all been said before?

[Crispvs]

I have wondered about Caesar's use of the term 'sub pellibus' for some time now. He could have said something like 'in papillones' but instead chose to use the less descriptive 'sub pellibus' (under skins). As 'skin' (or 'hide' if you prefer) is not the most detailed description one could use of a tent, this suggests that Caesar expected his audience to be familiar already with the term. This indicates that 'sub pellibus' was probably the common idiomatic term, but as such this then potentially separates the term from the item being talked about. Once a term has reached a currency which makes it the accepted shorthand for an activity its descriptive value for someone not familiar with the term is potentially reduced. An obvious correlate would be 'under canvas'. Most modern tents are not made of canvas, but the term remains in use as it became the linguistic shorthand for camping in tents in the days when tents were indeed made of canvas. All the use of the term 'sub pellibus' really tells us therefore, is that at some time prior to Caesar, to the Roman mind, tents *were* made from hide. It may be that at a later stage some tents were made of canvas. Use of a term such as 'sub pellibus' may well shroud from our understanding the exact time when hides ceased to be the universal material of tentage, just as the use of the term 'under canvas' would be potentially misleading for someone unfamiliar with modern tents.
A question we perhaps should be asking is that if substantial portions of leather tents have survived from Valkenburg, Vindolanda and Newstead, how easily might linen canvas survive under the same conditions? If it survives as well as leather then we can be more confident that there were no canvas tents deposited in those contexts. If it survives differently to leather (or does not survive at all) how does that affect our understanding? Has canvas survived on Viking sites which have yielded leather?

Crispvs

[Salvianus]

Very interesting ideas

It intrigues me that the only time Ammianus uses 'sub pellibus' it is in direct reference to CJ Caesar, lending some support to the continuation of idiom idea.

[jkaler48]

I found two ancient sources on tent materials one which appears to support the use of canvas tents!

Livy. ab Urbe Condita (English) [ Liv. book 5 chapter 2 ]

and oppression than the Veientines, for these passed the winter under their own roofs in a city protected by its magnificent walls and the natural strength of its position, whilst the Romans, amidst labour and toil, buried in frost and snow, were roughing it patiently under their skin-covered tents, and could not lay aside their arms even in the season of winter, when there is a respite from all wars, whether by land or sea.

Tacitus. Annales (English) [ Tac. Ann. book 13 chapter 35 ]
The entire army was kept under canvas, though the winter was so severe that the ground, covered as it was with ice, did not yield a place for the tents without being dug up. Many of the men had their limbs frost-bitten through the intensity of the cold, and some perished on guard.
AND
Tac. Ann. 14.38
The whole army was then brought together and kept under canvas to finish the remainder of the war.

Titus Livius (59 BC – AD 17)
Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117)
Perhaps there was a transition to the use of some canvas tents in the first century AD.
It sure would make it less expensive!

[Neuraleanus]

You need to be careful with translations, do you have access to the original latin?

[jkaler48]

You need to be careful with translations, do you have access to the original latin?

Contractus deinde omnis exercitus sub pellibus habitus est ad reliqua belli perpetranda
Looks like it translates as under hides doesn't it!
The translator has apparently used the modern term "under canvas" to indicate they were camped in tents.

[Cunicula]

Further to Crispus' post, I was thinking exactly the same about 'sub pellibus' - perhaps the term was coined at a period when weaving was developing and still an essentially home-based activity, and not organised and carried out on the near-industrial scale it soon became; under those circumstances, leather tents would have been cheaper and quicker to produce. I also wondered whether in the context of a hard campaign, being put up and down and carried around, leather tents would have proved more durable?
The Romans were well-used to using extensive awnings of linen, coloured awnings, at that, and Pliny in Book XIX, ‘The Nature and Cultivation of Flax etc’, Chapters 6 & 7 says:

“In more recent times linens alone have been employed for the purpose of affording shade in our theatres ….. After this, Caesar, when Dictator, covered with a linen awning the whole of the Human Forum, as well as the Sacred Way, from his own house as far as the ascent to the Capitol, a sight, it is said, more wonderful even than the show of gladiators which he then exhibited. At a still later period, and upon the occasion of no public games, Marcellus, the son of Octavia, sister of Augustus ….. covered in the Forum with awnings……
....Awnings have been lately extended, too, by the aid of ropes, over the amphitheatres of the Emperor Nero, dyed azure, like the heavens, and bespangled all over with stars. Those which
are employed by us to cover the inner court of our houses are generally red : one reason for employing them is to protect the moss that grows there from the rays of the sun.”
(We'd all like to know how they were dyeing linen red!)

The question of the survival of evidence is also significant. Linen is completely under-represented in the archaeological record apart from under very dry (or, indeed, frozen) conditions, because the waterlogged environments in which organic materials are found tend to be acid, and this does not favour the survival of plant fibres; people did not always wear wool in the past, as it would seem, this apprent fact is artefact of survival. You can see this on the rare occasions when charred waterlogged textiles are found, and the linen appears. There's an article by Elizabeth Wincott-Heckett called ‘An Elusive Cloth’ about the absence of linen in the archaeological record in North-Western Europe, which I can't at the moment find the reference to, but I have it at home somewhere adn will look it out tonight