Metal plate beneath Linothorakes or Spolades

[Paullus Scipio]

On the above statue there is banding on his feet and shins also. These are generally interpreted as leg bindings. Why are the arms covered in segmented plate and the feet in bindings? Why can't the arms also be covered in an item of clothing and not armour?

Certainly a possibility. However, we know hooped limb armor existed and it looked rather like the arms on this statue. I've never heard the interpretation of the leg banding as bindings, but I have wondered why they only come part way up the leg--why not just wear greaves? The fact that the banding continues down the foot, then ends in something not too different from the foot guard from Ai Khanoum makes me lean towards it being armor, but I don't know why it only covers the lower leg. Also, other depictions of muscled cuirass with (apparent) hooped leg/arm armor exist, in, for example coins of Hormizd. In the case of Hormizd, though, part of me thinks the creator of those coins just mixed and matched things from earlier Kushan coins and it may not depict real armor.

I have no idea what the square on the chest of the statue is all about.

Dan raises a very good point regarding this rather problematic 3 C BC statuette, found, I believe, in Syria - if so then it cannot be 'Parthian' but rather Hellenistcic because of time and place. It is often assumed the 'hoops' on the arms are armour by analogy with the 2 C BC Pergamum reliefs showing a trophy which includes tubular/hooped arm pieces, a Tube-and-Yoke corselet ( the shoulder pieces decorated with 'thunderbolts') and a masked helmet, and also bearing the senior oficer's girdle tied with the knot of Heracles, like the statuette.....

One should also note that the 'body armour', if correctly depicted, cannot be a metal 'muscled cuirass' for the shoulder pieces descend down the arms, T-shirt fashion - often shown this way by artists ( if of metal, the wearer could not raise his arms, or get it on or off! ) either in error, as an artistic convention, or showing that the armour is something else e.g. mail, or some other flexible form...... or even some form of 'sub-armalis'.

A vexing conundrum !!