Exhibit Shows Evolution Of Ancient Roman Armor

Thousands of years before the Italian carabinieri, the legionaries were the symbol of law and order in ancient Rome.




Silvano Mattesini, an architect and historian who is an expert on the ancient Roman military, organizes a travelling exhibit of legionary armor to highlight the history of the Eternal City and the Roman empire.

Silvano Mattesini
Historian
This is an exhibit for the city of Rome, because they wanted to show the relationship between the Romans and Christianity, and to show the contrast between the heavy Roman military armor and the figure of Christ.




This is a small portion of the exhibit, which takes up nearly 1,500 square meters when shown in its entirety. The armor on display ranges from the earliest Roman legionary armor used in the 4th century BC, and goes to nearly the end of the empire with samples from the 4th century AD. The artefacts look brand new, but they have been cleaned and restored. However, a lot also depends on what material the armor is made of.




Silvano Mattesini
Historian
If its bronze, theres no problem because bronze is incorruptible, then we find the artefact intact. When its made with iron, we have problems usually because iron deteriorates almost completely, so we dont find objects of this nature.




There is also a separate section showing armor belonging to one of the most famous and bloody institutions of ancient Rome: the gladiators.




Silvano Mattesini
Historian
Gladiators were very much tied to the military. Many Roman legionaries had their own orders in gladiator schools, which were always very important in the battles.




Mattesini currently has no plans for where his exhibit will go next, but hopes that it will travel throughout Europe in 2009.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• romereports
• video
• news
• vatican
• pope
• Exhibit
• Shows
• Evolution
• Of
• Ancient
• Roman
• Armor

[STEELPOT1]

SPQR Forever!

[deceptant]

Thanks for sharing. Watching this to help me in some concepts.

[RogierV2]

@death153278

Genghis Khan? Are you high or something, Genghis Khan lived during the middle ages around 1100.

[death153278]

Too bad Legionaires were replaced by barbaric mercenaries who were porly armored and didnt have any discipline like the original. when genghis chan attacked the roman armor was ancient history by then.

[CDspartan21]

@lovestarwarsechobase The Romans were heavily influenced by the Greeks and Etruscans before the 6th century.

[notgodsemigod]

@elgostine At the end, one needs to remember that even as late as in the 1st century B.C., the by far most famous Roman of all times, Julious Ceasar, when being murdered by his adopted son, uttered his last words in Greek (i.e. his first language) as per Suetonius who quoted eye-witnesses to the murder.

It should not surprise anyone. Rome was a caste-like city of main Latin element but with lots of Greek and Etruscan elements too. It should be seen as a city within the limits of the Greek world

[notgodsemigod]

@elgostine And even those patricians who declared Latin and non-Greek happened to be almost always "new patricians" (i.e. middle class Latin people who rose to patrician level through political reforms) - Cato the elder, who despised everything that was Greek (apparently because it reminded him his difference to other patricians...), is a prime example and shows that still in the late 2nd century, Rome was still a caste society.

[notgodsemigod]

@elgostine This caste-like formation of the Roman society was also depicted in the army where the lower and middle classes fought Latin-style and the higher classes fought in the triarii (hoplites) and in the cavalry Greek style. Of course gradually the old patrician families were latinised through centuries of reforms and intermarriages but still down to the conquest of Greece Roman patricians continued to declare descendants of Greeks (that is how they earned the alliance of 65% of Greeks).

[notgodsemigod]

@elgostine There is something that most people ignore :

1) Rome was a city that was made up by the union of more than 8 nearby towns which happened to be of various tribal ancestries (about 4 Latin, 2 Etruscan and 2 Greek ones...). Later one more Greeks settled in the city.

2) The name of Rome is a greek name and it means "power" (i.e. union=power)

3) Romans of Greek ancestry inside the city constituted the majority of patricians. Patricians till 5th B.C. spoke Latin only as a second language.

[elgostine]

@lovestarwarsechobase well during the earliest days of rome, the romans and their then neighbours the etruscans, adopted the greek style of fighting, due to the greek settlements in italy.

[elgostine]

@BillyJimmyLee serious? reallythe etruscans were equiped the same as the greeks due to the greek settlements throughout the meditteranian.