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I was just reading The Twelve Caesars and noticed this.
"When attending a morning sacrifice before the victim was killed, Galba was now repeatedly warned by a soothsayer to expect danger - murderers were about. Soon afterwards news came that Otho had seized the Guards' Camp. Though urged to hurry there in person, because his rank and presence could carry the day, Galba stayed where he was, bent on rallying to his standard the legionaries scattered throughout the city. He did, indeed, put on a linen corselet, but remarked that it would afford small protection against so many swords. "
What is the corselet it is refering to? The dictionary says "also cors·let Body armor, especially a breastplate". But I dont know what the original ward was before being translated to english.
Patrick Lawrence
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My first instinctive guess - some were still using a 'linothorax'?
Then, it could also be an error in the translation. Any of our latin speaking folk out there, who have the texts in latin?
Marcus Julius Germanus
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Quote:He did, indeed, put on a linen corselet, but remarked that it would afford small protection against so many swords.
It's Suet., Galba 19: loricam tamen induit linteam ...
( lorica lintea = "linen corselet".)
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Any one have a picture?
Patrick Lawrence
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See Rob Wolters' suggestion it could be a subarmalis being referred to.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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Well, at least one general style of Roman muscled cuirass clearly derives from the old linothorax, so it could just be a linen cuirass!
Matthew
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This seems an odd episode to me. If the danger was serious, why not wear serious armor? I suppose he might not have wanted to appear cowardly, and so wore armor that he could hide beneath his tunic and toga, not a possibility with a segmentata and problematic with a musculata, but why not a light mail shirt? Maybe none was handy that day at the palace.
Pecunia non olet
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Maybe this was all that was on hand in his palace? We dont realy know do we what was kept where.
Patrick Lawrence
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Quote:This seems an odd episode to me. If the danger was serious, why not wear serious armor? I suppose he might not have wanted to appear cowardly, and so wore armor that he could hide beneath his tunic and toga, not a possibility with a segmentata and problematic with a musculata, but why not a light mail shirt? Maybe none was handy that day at the palace.
Where did I read Marcus Antonius once wore a mail shirt beneath his tunic when he went to a meeting? Was it a novel?
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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Quote:Where did I read Marcus Antonius once wore a mail shirt beneath his tunic when he went to a meeting? Was it a novel?
Wasn't that Frodo? 8)
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Quote:Wasn't that Frodo? 8)
No. Why? Do you miss him, Pippin? 8)
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and the War of the Ring begins once more..... :lol: :lol:
It wasn't a mail shirt... it was Mithril.... :roll: :roll:
Now, we all know that the Trilogy owed a lot of it's costume design to ancient Greece and Scandanavia....maybe JRRT had read about a few Romans too......hehehehe
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Actually, I always assumed that Tolkien's Numenoreans were loosely based on the Romans. From the Briton point of view, the Romans came from across the sea and everything about them would have seemed the quintessence of civilization (and, prehaps, magic) to the natives.
Sorry, this is straying from the discussion of linen tunics.
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
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Didn't SOME Greek linen defenses actually have iron plates sewn inside? If so, the suggestion (above) that the linen exterior would attract less attention under civil garb, but the armor still give fair protection, makes good sense. Galba's remark about "that many swords" could refer to either, as after all, no known defense would have rendered him invulnerable. If OTOtH a subarmalis is meant, then except for blunting the blow(s), Galba was toast... :roll:
Duane C. Young, M.A.
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Quote:Didn't SOME Greek linen defenses actually have iron plates sewn inside?
Not that I've heard or seen. Many from the Classical era had bronze scales around the middle, on the OUTside, but that's about 500 years before Galba. The cuirass from Vergina is iron plates, but no indication of linen.
Frodo's shirt was mail *made of* mithril! Mithril is the name of the metal, and it was used for many different things.
Valete,
Matthew
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