Lorica Musculata made of Metal or leather?

[Mrbsct]

Hey is the Armour for Roman Senior officers and emperors(Musculated breastplate) made of leather or Metal(bronze and iron)? A lot of movies and TV series depict it made of leather.

[Dan Howard]

The only evidence for Roman leather armour is in the form of scale/lamellar and even that is pretty sketchy. Examples have only been found in Egypt and Syria, and it would be hard to determine whether the armour was worn by a Roman or a native. All of the musculata and segmentata typologies seem to have been made of metal.

[PhilusEstilius]

Is there any evidence of a Roman Musculata in metal that has been found.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

One guy claimed that some leather strips found belonged to a leather Segmentata, but the greater historical community agrees that Boiled leather was too impractical, especially in the East where it was usually depicted.

It may have made for nice parade armor.

[M. Val. Naso]

We have roman metal musculata, (only it is from 480 BC), and roman contemporary greek, even one from iron!

[Robert]

Hi Andy,

There has been much debate about leather "armor" on the forum. As you recently joined, it would be good to use the search function to unlock many a thread on subjects you may find interesting and which threads could answer some of your questions and interests.

On TV and movies, HAHAHAHAHA, Hollywood has an awfull lot to answer for in way of intoducing all sorts of utter nonsense, just because some director thought "it looked cool"

[Nathan Ross]

Is there any evidence of a Roman Musculata in metal that has been found.

The Cueva del Jarro/Almunecar breastplate from Granada is possibly Roman - there's a link to an image in this post.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

On TV and movies, HAHAHAHAHA, Hollywood has an awfull lot to answer for in way of intoducing all sorts of utter nonsense, just because some director thought "it looked cool"

Well I wouldn't put it so bluntly, but I reccomend you don't rely on any tv program for accuracy. Most TV programs are horribly Dumbed-Down and use the worst costumes. I was watching the BBC: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire yesterday, and they used the same equipment as Barbarians II.

[Dan Howard]

One guy claimed that some leather strips found belonged to a leather Segmentata, but the greater historical community agrees that Boiled leather was too impractical, especially in the East where it was usually depicted.

Segmented leather armour does exist. The problem is that the earliest examples date to the Middle Ages, not the Roman period and they aren't constructed anything like Roman segmented armour.

[PhilusEstilius]

I do think that with the lack of any metal cuirasses of the early to mid Imperial period were they not indeed made of leather, for it appears to be as rare to find a metal one as it is to find a leather one.

[Valerian Pertinax]

Philusestilius wrote:

I do think that with the lack of any metal cuirasses of the early to mid Imperial period were they not indeed made of leather, for it appears to be as rare to find a metal one as it is to find a leather one.

Part of that problem would likely be the scarcity of officers (who seem more likely to wear a muscle cuirass) in relation to the number of "enlisted". Of the hundreds of thousands of men who wore mail and segmentata, we have found only a relative handful of isolated samples to reconstruct what the common rank and file would have worn. The odds of finding an officer's musculata just laying around in good enough shape to tell us anything become depressingly remote.
It's a missing puzzle piece akin to a legion's eagle- we can be pretty dang sure that they existed, but none have ever been found (to my knowledge).

[jho]

Salvete!

There is actually - limited - evidence for Roman metal musculata. See this thread for a discussion:

Roman Muscle Armor

[Dan Howard]

There are plenty of Greek and Italian examples of muscled cuirasses and all of those are made of metal.

[Sardaukar]

Out of curiosity, which Roman officers used Musculata? Senior officers obviously, but how about Tribunes? Centurions?

[Dan Howard]

How many sculptures depict their subject in a stylized fashion and how many depict them in armour they actually wore?