Subarmalis designs?

[ValentinianVictrix]

Is there not the thought that the thoracomachus, as described in the 'De Rebus Bellicis', could be worn on its own as that is what is implied in one part of that book?

[Cavok]

Having tried out a few of these I currently mainly use a Leather one with the shoulder doublers padded with sheepskin under a Hamata.
I had started making a fabric liner but went and over stuffed it. I put that aside to finish some other stuff but want to get back to it.
It would have the advantage that you could use the Leather Subarmalis as light armour maybe when working when the full monty would get a bit tiresome. But leather on its own would not absorb blows so effectively obviously.

I have one problem with the vertically sewn version shown. After a while the stuffing what ever it may be will migrate downwards thereby dissapearing from areas where needed like the shoulders. I would nee dto be compartmentalised to work effectively.

[Cavok]

After thinking about this in the sauna....what if the vertical lines are leather? not Padded linen or some such????

[Magnus]

Double post.

[Magnus]

Based on the ones Graham posted alone, I would say the only one that would qualify as leather would be the fourth one, or upper right (tomb of acceptus). The others are depicted hanging only as textiles can. Even the last two, appear to be quilted, and puffy, I don't think you can get the same effect with leather. It looks as though the artisan went to some effort to depict that.

[Fruitbat]

I remember, many years ago, reading about crusaders who, getting too hot in the sun, went into action just wearing their quilted coats, without any mail and were described by the contemporary writer as safe, but 'bristling with arrows'!!

Sorry, no idea what it was I read, but I remember it quite clearly, any ideas out there??

[John Conyard]

This is an interesting topic Graham, but you are not getting much back!

Without definitive hard evidence, as Mike says, we are only guessing. But all reconstruction is to a degree guess work, and we do have some leads upon which we can propose some ideas.

We do have the iconographic evidence you posted, all open to interpretation and artistic licence.

Plus various bits of hard evidence of possible textile and leather “under armour” padding/lining such as helmet liners of fibre or felt, the greave liner of specially woven 5mm thick linen from Dura, the coif made of felt from Dura and the leather greave liner from Vindonissa.

Some written evidence which you mentioned such as Caesar’s felt or hide jerkins, and the thick cloth garment consisting of many layers of linen or felt one finger thick identified as a thoracomachus in De Rebus Bellicis. The latter covered in Libyan hide, probably oiled goat skin, to waterproof it.

And knowledge of “padding” extrapolated from other periods such as the idea that material fibres have to lay at angles to each other to increase resistance to blades e.g. felt with the fibres running in all directions or successive layers of linen with the warp placed at an acute angle to the warp of the layer below it.

On that basis, which is not really that much to go on, I would suggest that none of your attachments show plain felt, the lines of stitching seem to exclude it. Although they may show felt stitched to a cover of linen or thin leather such as goat which would help waterproof it and reduce wear. Two of your attachments seem to show a stud or rivet in the middle of a quilted panel, suggesting that it is holding a rigid plate of horn or metal in place - something akin to a coat of plates in which the plates do not overlap.

I do not really believe we have come close to reconstructing a plausible thoracomachus or subarmalis. But it is fun trying.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Finally someone managed to track down the image I was looking for, Graham.
Thank you Renatus!
These images have always made me think it is a subarmalis seen on the shoulders.

http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat.html?fu...&id=306132

[Marc320]

Hello Graham,

I know for a long time the illustration n°4 which is situated above the right arc of Constantin's Arc. I thought that the representation showing a speech of the emperor to his legionaries (or / and praetorians : three to the front one of which with this armour) was the only one of this kind.
Thank you for your 6° image from the Museum of Split: I did not know her.

Personally, I have never considered this this suit of armour as a Subarmalis but as a rare lorica, of a type enough little different from this medieval armour called in French "de moyenne clooure".
But it is only a personal interpretation in the absence of any archaeological discovery.

Marc

[john m roberts]

Marc,
Is your "de moyenne clooure" something like a brigandine? I've always thought this armor looked like a brigandine or even more like what the English called a "jack of plates," in which small, square plates were riveted between layers of fabric or stitched with the cords going through holes in the centers of the plates, making a pattern of squares.

[Marc320]

Yes, John, a jack of plates but, to take shape...

You know, as me, that Romans, at least of the middle of the Republic until the second century AD, made everything to improve not only their offensive armament, but and maybe especially in that whole period, their defensive armament. The best system which may have been the " lorica plumata ", a hamata with small feather-like scales attached to the rings and also the lorica which we call "segmentata".
I think possible that the lorica we are talking about correspond to the lorica recontructed by the archeologists (http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcna...defens.htm) on the archeological site of Colletières (1008/1010 AD) where were only found little plates having constituted an armor. No rings or pieces of coat of mail.

On the Constantin'Arc, we see the three principal soldiers fully equipped hearing their Emperor. One wear a squamata, thee second a "segmentata".
That's why I believe that the third wears also a lorica, perhaps a borrowing, perhaps a short-lived trial. (For the Middle Ages, but not only, the Thordeman's book "Armour From the Battle of Wisby, 1361" is packed with extensive and interesting pieces of information.

And the sixth representation de Graham reinforces my old hypothesis. If he might give us more informations on this monument... Thanks in advance.

Sorry for my poor english

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Another reconstruction hit the internet today of AppiusLucretiusMartiusAudaxAlma.



I have asked him where he found any evidence for it but he could not state it.

Personally I think it is far fetched and I would go for quilted/padded garments like this
simple construction :



And I must say that I like what Appius has done to some emperor images :



There is also however a tendency amongst Legionary re-enactors to wear subarmalia for which not that much proof is in existence. Of course there are some reliëfs which show this garment worn by what look to be Legionary Milites Gregarii. However that does not convince me that it was widely worn.

So I would go for quilted/padded or indeed felt.

M.VIB.M.

[M. Demetrius]

Felt works well for padding, in my experience, but doesn't last long if not covered with something else. Tends to come unfelted and get thin spots.

[Magnus]

I wish T.L. Clark's website was still up...shame he never updated and re-published it. Had the best info on subarmalia on it.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Not Armor class.....

As in: This is nice what you wear but it is not armor... (sub standard)



M.VIB.M.