Late Roman belt

[Crispvs]

Perhaps it is my eyesight, but I seem to be seeing on the Via Latina figure both a long scabbard on the right and a shorter scabbard on the left, with a round chape. The latter scabbard appears to be connected to the lighter coloured diagonal strap (for want of a better descriptive term). I seem to be seeing two diagonal straps crossing on the chest. One of these, as I said, appears to be carrying the shorter scabbard whilst the other could be either a guige strap to support the shield or a strap to suspend the sword from. Of these two options the sword suspension option seem more likely, as the other strap passes over it, which would not be practical for a guige strap. Of course, it may just have been de rigeur to wear a diagonal strap across the body for reasons we would not understand and that the sword isto be understood to be suspended from the waist belt.

Of course, the artist may not have been used to depicting soldiers. The sword and shield are both far too small (although this depiction is far from unique in that respect) and the helmet looks a little odd. It could be that he was trying to depict armour but was more used to depicting civilian clothing so used his usual depictional methods and then tried to use patterning to mark it out as armour, or then again i could be that it was always supposed to depict a tunic rather than mail and that some clothing may have been far more decorated than we are usually led to suppose.

I don't really think we can draw any definite conclusions from the figure.

On the Chiaramoti figures, are we sure that the belts are hidden? The armour appears to be bloused over something (as would a tunic so perhaps here we have another artist trying to depict something he was not personally familiar with) and I fancy I can see two long strap ends hanging down the front of each below the line of the pouching.

Crispvs