Reconstructing the Roman Pectoral – A Assortment of Unmitigated Pedantry

This week we’re going to look a selected piece of early Roman navy tools, the common-or-garden bronze pectoral, which it seems is surprisingly difficult for us to confidently reconstruct, partially as a result of the interval of its use that almost all pursuits us (the run from c. 264 to c. 146 the place Rome is successful its first massive abroad wars) is a relative hole – fancy phrase, ‘lacuna‘ – in our proof, making it actually troublesome to correlate what our literary supply (Polybius) is telling us to the bodily proof now we have (each preserved examples and paintings). This was, we’re informed (by Polybius) the armor of the frequent Roman soldier within the interval of their best wars, but on some stage we don’t actually know what it regarded like. Not with certainty, in any case.

Specifically I’m going to argue that the most typical reconstruction of this armor, as a single bronze plate suspended often by leather-based straps over the chest, might be mistaken and that the armor extra possible existed as a fancy harness, simplified in short literary description down to simply its core factor. However as we’ll see, that is going to be a zone of what I time period ‘actual uncertainty’ – a state of affairs the place with out new proof coming out of the bottom, we merely can’t know for positive.

So this isn’t simply an train in working by means of how one can reconstruct one particular type of tools, but in addition how historians have interaction in questions that exist in a zone of actually low confidence.

However first, as all the time, affording a full panoply of heavy infantry tools as is the responsibility of any propertied Roman citizen is dear! If you wish to assist me waste spend my cash on copy historic navy tools, you may help this venture over at Patreon. In order for you updates at any time when a brand new put up seems or wish to hear my extra bite-sized musings on historical past, safety affairs and present occasions, you may comply with me on Bluesky (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social). I’m additionally energetic on Threads (bretdevereaux) and keep a de minimis presence on Twitter (@bretdevereaux).

Polybius

Our first cease is Polybius. Polybius wrote within the mid-second century (that’s, the 140s), however his historical past covers the interval from 264 to 146 and his description of the pectoral is positioned comparatively early within the narrative, in 216, as half of a bigger rationalization of the Roman navy system. There may be thus instantly a query as to if the small print Polybius is giving are right for 216 or for the 140s when he wrote. In follow, the reply have to be one thing of a mixture: Polybius has sources that attain again and would possibly give him particulars applicable to the interval (he appears to have the writings of a navy tribune to make use of for this description of the dilectus), but it surely appears possible that his description of the pectoral comes from observing it. Consequently, whereas I believe that Polybius’ description of who’s required to put on what could also be correct for 216, he has clearly seen the pectoral and understands it to nonetheless be in use in his personal day (certainly, at different factors on this prolonged passage, he explicitly notes issues that was a method however had modified by his personal day).

That’s useful, as a result of Polybius is the one supply that describes this armor. Later historians – Livy, Plutarch, and many others. – appear broadly unaware of it and it actually does appear to be the pectoral was within the strategy of going extinct when Polybius was writing (for causes beneath). So now we have one description of the armor, however a minimum of it’s by an eyewitness. Right here it’s (Polyb. 6.23.14-15, trans. mine):

The various [hoi polloi, “the common folk”] taking a bronze plate a span [c. 23cm] on all sides, which they place over their chests and name ‘coronary heart protectors’ [καρδιοφύλαξ, very literally ‘heart protector’], end their armaments. Nonetheless these price greater than ten thousand drachmas [= the first class of Roman infantry], as an alternative of the heart-protector put on mail coats [αλυσιδωτοί θώρακες, “hooked [or chain] cuirasses” which we all know is the Greek option to say ‘mail coats.’]

And…that’s it. From later authors (Varro, De Ling. Lat. 5.116; Plin HN 34.18) we get the Latin title for this armor, pectorale (pectorale, pectoralis (n) for the Latin nerds), thus the English time period ‘pectoral’ however no extra particulars of its development.

Crucially, this armor doesn’t present up on any extremely seen Roman navy monuments. The reason being pretty easy: the earliest actually seen Roman navy monuments are the Pydna Monument (168) and the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus (late second century) by which level the pectoral was already on the best way out. Historic artists are inclined to favor excessive standing tools and so with the pectoral on the best way out (although possible nonetheless very a lot in use in 168) and the poorer, decrease standing armor, they didn’t depict it, as an alternative preferring to make use of mail armor to sign Roman troopers (particularly, mail is used on the Pydna Monument to sign ‘these are Romans’ in distinction to Macedonians or Gauls).

In consequence, students initially didn’t have loads to go on besides Polybius’ description – the archaeology, as we’ll see, doesn’t actually get sorted out till the final 40 years or so. So that they reconstructed on that foundation. A ‘span’ (σπιθαμή) is a ‘pure’ unit, the gap between the thumb and the little finger at full extension, which is conveniently roughly half of a cubit (the size of a forearm out to the tip of the center finger), which finally turns into formalized in Attic measurements (which Polybius tends to make use of; different locations might need barely totally different measures for a similar phrases) as 23.1cm and 46.2cm respectively.

That results in the most typical factor we see in creative reconstructions and reenactor package: the pectoral is reconstructed as a brass or bronze plate, often about 1-2mm thick (the conventional thickness for breastplates), 23cm by 23cm sq.. Since clearly it must be connected to one thing it’s usually proven backed in leather-based, with leather-based straps across the waist and over the shoulders holding it in place. I’m going to name this reconstruction – a single plate, 23cm sq., on a leather-based harness – the ‘conventional’ reconstruction.

That measurement lets the pectoral cowl a lot of the chest, but it surely does nothing for the stomach, sides or shoulders. On that foundation, I’ve fairly often heard students regard it as a really minimal, nearly token protection, unlikely to do a lot in any respect to guard the boys carrying it. And once more, earlier than there was a lot archaeology to work with (or earlier than finds had been analyzed, organized chronologically and had their growth labored by means of), you may see how that is probably the most logical extrapolation of what Polybius is saying.

However I do wish to notice some issues right here. Polybius’ description of this armor is extraordinarily transient. He doesn’t even trouble to elucidate what Roman mail armor is like in any respect – no description, as an illustration, of its size (to the knees) or shoulder-doubling or the front-closure mechanism. If it weren’t for interval depictions of mail, we might in all probability reconstruct it with out these parts. As for the pectoral, all he says is that it’s a span sq. and the Romans have a humorous title for it. Which is to say it’s solely potential that Polybius is leaving out some particulars right here. Which brings us to:

The Growth of the Italic Pectoral

This, after all, is the purpose at which we naturally flip to archaeology to offer us each bodily examples of this type of armor and likewise visible representations of it. And he we run into an instantaneous drawback: the third and second century characteristic a close to complete lacuna of Italic armor, in each paintings and preserved examples. The issue is irritating in its elegant simplicity: the Roman navy system – terribly environment friendly and in its approach, anti-aristocratic – coincides because it expands with the tip of aristocratic ‘warrior burials’ wherever it goes. Thus as Rome through the fourth and early third century goes about consolidating management of Italy, the quantity of good tomb work with aristocratic warrior in procession or burials with arms and armor drop to mainly nothing. The Roman military is eradicating the proof we would have for the Roman military. Astoundingly irritating.

The evidentiary file begins to select up a bit within the second century with extra creative depictions of Roman troopers because the Roman state engages in additional monumental depictions of its troopers (famous above), however by that time mail slightly than the pectoral is the ‘nationwide armor’ of Rome’s armies (despite the fact that the pectoral is probably going in use) and pectorals by no means seem. The actually robust archaeological file for armor should wait till the imperial interval, when the everlasting stationing of Rome’s armies on the frontier of the empire means they sit in a single place lengthy sufficient for us to recuperate bits of armor. Weapons present up extra usually than armor (pila extra usually than another kind of weapon, a testomony to their disposability) and we get a lot of helmets (for causes not solely clear to me), however functionally no physique armor from this era. The perfect we will do are tiny fragments of metallic rings for mail and even these are uncommon.

Worse but, as talked about earlier than, the pectoral was going extinct on this interval. Notably, when our proof improves massively within the first century BC and AD, the pectoral is nowhere to be discovered. No supply mentions it as nonetheless in use in that interval, no artist depicts it, no finds of it are recovered. Polybius is thus our final supply for this armor, suggesting that by the beginning of the primary century, it had been wholly changed by mail. No shock, mail is superior (if costly). However meaning we can’t search for later examples to assist us perceive what Polybius is saying.

However we will can have a look at earlier ones.

The Italic pectoral appears to have arrived from the Center East within the eighth or maybe seventh centuries (someday between c. 750 and c. 680). This type of armor, a roughly flat metallic place (versus an enclosing breastplate of the kind we see in Greece round this time) has Center Jap precedents (we see Assyrian troopers in paintings carrying comparable armor), although how precisely it made it to Italy is unclear – Phoenicians appears most possible, however unsure. In both case, by the seventh century, these pectoral armors are fairly frequent over all of Italy, together with Latium (the place Rome is) and Etruria. The armor at this level usually consists of two bronze plates (a entrance plate and a again plate), which may be rectangular or round, about 20-25cm vast (or tall; generally these are even smaller than this) and which had been related by leather-based straps. We usually name these ‘rectangular’ and ‘single disc’ pectorals. When adorned (they usually very incessantly are), they often characteristic both geometric designs (usually rectangles inside an oblong cuirass) or animal designs, both punched into the plate or embossed.

And you may see how an archaeologist these pectorals from the seventh century may be pondering, “ah, I see precisely what Polybius was speaking about: a bronze plate a span sq.!” Besides, after all, the sixth century will not be the second century and these pectorals preserve evolving.

Now, in vital elements of Italy, particularly Etruria, these pectoral armors start to get replaced within the late sixth century by Greek-style armor, particularly for elite, high-status warriors. Specifically, the Etruscans love the tube-and-yoke (linothorax) armor when it exhibits up and it swiftly turns into a marker of elite standing, although pectorals do sometimes present up in Etruscan artwork, albeit much less incessantly, however they’re definitely tapering off. Annoyingly, at roughly this level the archaeological file for Rome particularly additionally dries up, so it isn’t clear precisely what armors are standard in Rome within the very early Republic (our literary sources assume Greek-style armors, which can be proper, however they’re guessing and deeply anachronistic of their assumptions).

Nonetheless in central Italy, within the Apennines Mountains, the pectoral persists and undergoes some vital design adjustments. Round 600, we begin to see adjustments to the strap mechanisms holding the armor collectively: one shoulder strap is changed with a pair of bronze plates related by a hinge. The ensuing harness will get fairly complicated, as you may see within the determine of the Capestrano Warrior (c. 550), the place the harness that holds the pectoral additionally provides a scabbard (suspended on the chest) for the sword and there’s a clear distinction between the metallic hinged plate (over the precise shoulder) and the extra reddish-colored leather-based straps (of which there are three, two vast and one slim) holding the harness and scabbard collectively.

Within the early fifth century, this design is each enhanced and drastically simplified with the emergence of the primary ‘triple disc’ pectorals. These are so named as a result of the entrance plate (and again plate) take the type of three discs in a triangular association, although I need to stress it is a single plate with three round designs on it in a roughly triangular form, not three particular person round plates. Certainly, earlier archaeologists supposed that the ‘triple disc’ cuirass will need to have developed in two phases from the disc pectorals mentioned above and posited a ‘double disc’ cuirass, which seems to not have existed.

These triple-disc breast- and back-plates had been joined collectively not by leather-based straps however by a simplified model of the hinged plate system used within the sixth century disc pectorals, besides now there are 4 connecting plates: one every over the shoulders (every of them hinged) and one on the sides (with out hinges). These plates additionally get a bit wider, offering comparatively fuller protection over the higher physique and the armor is supplemented by a large bronze belt worn across the waist which protects the decrease stomach. You’ll be able to see the total armor clearly in paintings:

Within the second-half of the fourth century (so 350 onwards), we see these triple-disc cuirasses joined by one other kind, significantly on the western coast of southern Italy (so the realm south of Latium), the ‘rectangular anatomical cuirass.’ This takes the prevailing triple-disc harness construction, with its bronze belt and connecting facet and shoulder plates, however as an alternative of the triangular triple-disc cuirass, it substitutes rectangular breast- and back-plates, with the designs on these invariably mimicking the musculature on Greek muscle cuirasses, though – as a result of these plates are smaller than Greek breastplates (which wrap across the physique) – the muscle groups depicted are visibly smaller-than-lifelike. Briefly, the creative type of the muscle cuirass is being copied, however this isn’t an effort to imitate the precise muscle groups of the person carrying the armor.

To offer a way of measurement, recovered triple disc cuirasses vary from 27-32.5cm tall and 26-28cm on the widest, whereas the oblong anatomical cuirasses vary from 29.5 x 37cm tall to 25 x 30cm vast for the entrance plates. Mixed with facet and shoulder plates that are usually 5-8cm vast and a large bronze belt (7-12cm vast, 70-110cm lengthy, ~1mm thick), these actually do cowl a lot of the higher physique, albeit with gaps, and are one thing nearer to an articulated breastplate than they’re to the small ‘coronary heart protector’ of the Capestrano Warrior.

And chances are you’ll notice {that a} rectangular plate over the chest of c. 30cm by c. 28cm will not be very removed from Polybius’ description of “a bronze plate a span on all sides” and higher but is way extra prone to have truly be in use within the third and second centuries for Polybius to see.

Notably – and that is going to matter in a second – these fifth and fourth century pectoral harnesses don’t seem with out bronze belts or connecting plates. You will discover these pectorals in museums with out these added parts, in lots of circumstances as a result of when the primary of those armors had been excavated (and/or looted) it was finished carelessly and so the smaller plates had been missed. Nonetheless, at any time when we get these armors with safe provenance or see them depicted in paintings, as Michael Burns notes, with out exception, we get the total harness with all seven parts (frontplate, backplate, 2 shoulder plates, 2 facet plates, bronze belt). We by no means to my information ever see them suspected in easy leather-based harnesses; it absolutely was potential to take action, however it’s unclear that anybody ever did after the introduction of the four-plate harness.

What Michael Burns thinks is going on (revising earlier work by the late, nice Peter Connolly), and I feel he’s proper, is that Southern Italic peoples are responding to the growing presence of Greek muscle cuirasses coming in by means of Greek colonies in Southern Italy. However slightly than simply copying the muscle cuirass, they appear to have innovated from their very own single-disc pectorals (which didn’t all the time cowl an entire lot of the chest) to the triple-disc to create a type of ‘exploded’ muscle cuirass. Initially, they do that by taking their very own armor type, the single-disc cuirass, and increasing it out right into a full ‘exploded’ breastplate, however finally, within the fourth century, there’s sufficient creative crossover that designs that use an oblong plate and deliberately mirror Greek creative tropes seem alongside triple-disc types (which don’t go away). It’s price noting that a few of these triple-disc and rectangular anatomical armors are splendidly adorned with complicated designs, however lots of them are very minimally adorned, particularly as we get into the fourth century, suggesting a requirement for a less expensive, no-frills model of this safety.

After which in 290 the Romans win the Third Samnite Warfare and take management of the non-Greek elements of Southern Italy. And as famous above, when the Romans incorporate a given a part of Italy into their ‘alliance’ system, for causes that aren’t solely clear to us (however the sample may be very robust), warrior burials, ritual weapon depositions and aristocratic paintings of warriors cease. Which suggests proper across the 12 months 300, our proof for the Italic pectoral custom merely vanishes. Actually, we mainly have an increasing bubble of darkness, radiating out from Rome (which can be in all probability how the Roman conquest felt to the Samnites), blinding our skill to trace the event of armor in Italy.

So by the third century, we don’t see any pectorals, as a result of we don’t see a lot of something (besides helmets; we proceed to see these) for fairly a while.

Besides…

The Bizarre Exception We Want To Dismiss

The one odd exception to it is a pectoral disc discovered within the siege camps at Numantia. It’s 17cm vast and round, with a sample of concentric circles and a big central knob and for fairly a while if you happen to went searching for an precise Roman pectoral that is what you’d discover.

The issue is that it isn’t Roman, it is vitally clearly Spanish. This spent a century not getting seen as a result of archaeologists engaged on historic arms and armor are usually very geographically specialised, so of us engaged on Roman and Italic arms and armor should not prone to be very aware of the arms and armor of the fifth century Celtiberian Meseta. However if you happen to are aware of that, it is vitally clear that this isn’t a Roman pectoral in any respect, however a Spanish one, regardless of it turning up in a Roman camp.

First, whereas Italy had single-disc round pectorals these had been changed within the archaeological and creative file within the fifth century by the bigger triple-disc pectorals mentioned above. Furthermore, these earlier single-disc Italic pectorals don’t characteristic raised concentric circles as a part of their regular creative motifs. The extra usually have animals on them, or punch-holed easy geometric designs. They had been additionally flat and didn’t characteristic central knobs.

However who did have pectoral harnesses with round central plates that includes raised concentric circle designs and distinguished central knobs? The Celtiberians, who’re the folks who lived at Numantia, the place these camps had been. Now the difficult bit right here is that these pectorals are additionally – so far as we will inform – lengthy out of use within the Iberian Peninsula as properly: they persist by means of the fifth century, however fade out in the beginning of the fourth.

However whereas it’s a little troublesome to think about a second-century Roman soldier determined to convey a bit of armor with him to Spain that had been out of use in Italy for one thing like 4 centuries, it’s loads simpler to think about the identical Roman soldier in Spain might need looted a temple or a tomb (or just struck a burial whereas entrenching his camp) that contained a fifth or very early fourth century Celtiberian disc-harness and that this soldier then looted the shiny bronze plate, later to be (for no matter motive) discarded within the camp.

Reconstructing the Roman Pectoral

So that’s the form of our proof: with the Numantia pectoral eliminated (as a result of it isn’t Roman in any respect, however Celtiberian), now we have no examples of this armor from the third or second centuries B.C. What we do have is a practice of pectoral armors which result in the emergence of the triple-disc and rectangular anatomical pectoral harnesses within the fourth century, which we lose sight of within the normal lacuna for many non-helmet navy tools within the third and second century. When our proof returns, they’re gone however now we have this report by Polybius that poorer-but-still-propertied Romans within the heavy infantry (so not the poorest Romans combating, these are the velites or don’t serve in any respect) put on a bronze pectoral plate a few span sq. over their chest.

That admittedly fairly poor proof base leaves us with actually simply two choices, each of them considerably unsatisfactory.

The primary choice, the one taken – as far as I can inform – by the good majority of recent creative reconstructions, is to easily learn Polybius and reconstruct precisely what he says. That offers these Roman troopers a single metallic plate, usually proven mounted on a leather-based backing with leather-based straps, about 23cm sq.. That is, in a way, the philologically elegant answer: it assumes nothing not in our textual content. The drawback, from an archaeological perspective, is that this successfully requires arguing one among two circumstances: both first that sixth century pectoral – with its easy leather-based suspension – one way or the other survived in Italy for 4 centuries to be noticed in motion on the battlefield by Polybius within the mid-second century with out leaving another proof in any respect. Not one piece of paintings, not one surviving instance within the intervening interval, although now we have sixty-seven fifth and fourth century examples of the later pectoral sorts (45 triple-disc and 22 rectangular anatomical cuirass sorts). That may be proper. However it’s a heroic assumption.

Alternately, the argument can be that the Romans in some unspecified time in the future developed their very own model of the pectoral, in all probability based mostly off of the oblong anatomical kind, which discarded with the vast bronze belt, the shoulder plates and the facet plates and so consisted solely of a breastplate and a backplate. The issue right here is easy: as Michael Burns notes in his survey of Italic pectorals, that configuration by no means happens in paintings or in archaeology the place web site and provenance are safe. We shouldn’t have a single instance of these later Southern Italic pectorals – the kinds that emerge after the extra complicated harness construction mentioned above – dishing out with these items. Might they’ve finished? After all. However as of 2005 (and as far as I do know, to the current), now we have no proof that anybody ever did. This answer thus requires conjuring into existence an successfully unknown armor-type. That may be proper, significantly given how dangerous our proof for Roman arms and armor within the Early Republic is. You’ll be able to even think about, if we had proof of it, how we’d clarify it: the broadening participation within the Roman military results in poorer Romans to take up the Samnite cuirasses (that’s, triple-disc and rectangular anatomical cuirasses) they’ve seen, however to jettison the ‘additional bits’ to make it cheaper and extra inexpensive, successfully reversing a number of centuries of armor growth to create a stripped down breast- and back-plate solely model. That’s what we’d posit, if we had some, however we don’t have some and I’d argue that it runs towards the foundations of proof as practices in archaeology to conjure into existence an unattested variant of an object-class (which doesn’t developmentally hyperlink to something else you may see) just because it might be handy. That isn’t how we assess cash or pots, I don’t see why we might do it with armor.

That leaves another choice: Polybius is describing the Southern Italian pectoral harness we can see, however doing so incompletely. It’s not laborious to think about how the Romans can have picked up this armor: they spent the interval from 343 to 290 combating the Samnites in Campania and the Samnites are the most important customers of the triple-disc cuirass and Campania is the place we most frequently see them in paintings. If the Romans weren’t already utilizing this armor (and bear in mind, now we have no proof in any respect of what armor the Romans are utilizing in c. 300), they might definitely decide it up.

Then Polybius comes alongside within the mid-second century, the place this armor is already dying out, largely changed by mail, however nonetheless hanging on right here or there – maybe as hand-me-downs utilized by poorer Romans. One benefit of the pectoral harness’ seven-part construction is that it’s a kind of ‘one-size-fits-no-one’ set that might be fairly straightforward to change or cross all the way down to new customers (not like a Greek-style muscle cuirass, which actually must be fitted to the wearer). Polybius then, writing in regards to the Roman military because it existed within the Second Punic Warfare (218-201) and, as per Rawson, utilizing maybe the accounts of some navy tribunes, is conscious of this armor’s place within the navy rules of that point and so consists of it however with solely minimal description. As a Greek, Polybius is used to eager about physique armor as a single piece – a breastplate, a tube-and-yoke cuirass, a mail coat – slightly than a harness, so an oblong anatomical cuirass that’s, maybe 30cm by 28cm for its entrance plate, he describe sit merely as ” bronze plate a span on all sides.” Simply as he doesn’t embrace the small print of Roman mail armor’s shoulder doubling, he feels no actual want to incorporate the shoulder and facet plates of the harness and he might not even bear in mind that the vast bronze belt has any actual armor worth in any respect (early archaeologists made the identical error, assessing it as purely ornamental, however it might supply some safety).

I feel these are the three choices we’re left with for the pectoral: shocking sixth-century survival within the mid-second century, in any other case un-evidenced recreation of an older type out of the fourth-century rectangular anatomical cuirass or just that it’s the rectangular anatomical cuirass, harness in any respect, that Polybius has described incompletely. My very own intuition is that the latter might be right. One attention-grabbing factor is that in comparison with, say, muscle cuirasses, these pectoral cuirasses of each the triple-disc and rectangular anatomical sorts had been in all probability produced from sheet metallic (sheet bronze, specifically), slightly than solid from an ingot, which might have made it comparatively simpler to provide bigger numbers of armors – equally if one opted for a method with easy decorations, amply in proof within the archaeological file. In the meantime, as famous the design is pretty straightforward to regulate for measurement. Jeremy Armstrong and Nicholas Harrison counsel that this partially allowed for “the growth of warfare in Italy seen within the fourth century and marked by Rome’s wars of conquest” and I feel that’s proper.

Now within the fourth century, that armor would possibly nonetheless be restricted to the pretty well-off. However within the late third or early second century, it isn’t laborious seeing how the introduction of an even higher but in addition considerably dearer armor – mail – would possibly ‘push’ present pectoral cuirasses (once more, of each sorts) down the socioeconomic ladder because the Roman first census class was required – as Polybius tells us – to accumulate mail. The spare armor would possibly ‘circulation downwards’ because it had been, making the prosperous man’s undecorated however nonetheless shiny bronze armor of c. 350 the poor man’s pectoral of c. 150. Certainly, there isn’t a motive it couldn’t be the exact same piece of armor.

I don’t suppose the proof permits us to reply this query with confidence, however I do suppose that straightforward inertia has led students to proceed reproducing the ‘conventional’ pectoral reconstruction lengthy after it stopped being the most definitely one. As an alternative, the most definitely answer is that the Romans had continued to make use of, in some type, the total triple-disc or rectangular anatomical cuirass, together with metallic connecting plates (and maybe the vast bronze belt) and that what Polybius was seeing was not, in truth, the small ornamental chest-plates of the sixth century however slightly this armor.