As one should expect from Post Militaire, the castings in this 8-part kit (including the base) are of high definition and excellent fit. The figure is dated to the period of the Marcomanic Wars, fought under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, between AD 168 and 175 against a Germanic tribe (the Marcomanii) and their allies. The title choice of legio I Italica seems curious as this legion was, in fact, raised by Vespasian (in Italy, hence the name) and not Marcus Aurelius, who raised the other two Italica legions. Apart from Italy, it spent most of its time in the province of Moesia (one of the Danubian provinces) and so far as I can tell it never went near the province of Germany. In many respects, this model could be said to represent a soldier from the film ‘Gladiator’. Unfortunately, this figure is no more accurate than those portrayed in that film! The inspiration for the figure seems to come from an illustration in the book by Michael Simkins (“Warriors of Rome”, published by Blandford, illustrated by James Field), found on p.124, plate 15.
This, in turn, seems to be based on a small figurine now in the British Museum, which is generally identified as representing a Praetorian Guardsman. The latter was clearly sculpted by a Roman who knew nothing of the details of the armour and it may well have been nothing more than a toy! This Simkins book is of a type that I deplore, in that he tends to make statements for which no authority is supplied. The illustrations are poorly chosen with colours that are lurid and, quite frankly, unlikely in the extreme. The result is that when such books are used as source material by sculptors, we get inaccurate figures like this one. Having said that, the helmet is extremely well rendered, and it is a pity that Derek Hansen didn’t do a larger scale bust of this item alone. It is one of the most perfectly preserved of Roman helmets known and moreover is one of the comparatively few that have survived from the late 2nd century AD. It was found at Niedermörmter (near to Xanten, Germany). Robinson classified it as ‘Imperial Italic, Type-H’. The actual helmet has no cheek-pieces and these have had to be ‘invented’ here. The first mistake is that the kit colouring instructions suggest it is an iron helm with bronze additions. It isn’t – the helmet is made of bronze throughout. Moving on down the body we come to the torso wearing lorica segmentata armour. Sorry, no way is this even a half-way accurate representation of this type of armour. By the mid 2nd century AD it is generally supposed that the armour had evolved into the simplified form known as the ‘Newstead’ variety. This was devoid of many of the brass fitments found on the earlier armour (such as the lobate hinges). The shoulder plates were rivetted together and the closure of the front and back was achieved via a loop (rather than a hook) arrangement and leather laces. There are, in fact, comparatively few archaeological finds of this form of armour and certainly nothing corresponding to the complete ones from Corbridge or Risstissen.
To list the deficiencies in this model:
(1) The upper shoulder-guard seems to retain some sort of a central rectangular hinge, for which there is not a shred of evidence.
(2) This shoulder-guard is far too narrow and is formed from two, rather than the three plates we have evidence for. It also has raised edges, which is wrong (see below, error No.4).
(3) The girdle plates are continued right up to the top, instead of having an upper chest plate on either side and at the back. Simkins says there is evidence for this. I think he is referring to sources like the previously mentioned statuette and the base of the column of Septimius Severus. This latter dates from the early 3rd century AD, after the armour had gone out of use and where the sculptor clearly had little knowledge of what he was representing. Both sources are unreliable.
(4) The girdle plates have a clear raised edge at the bottom and front edge – but this feature is only found on the collar plates where it protects the wearer’s neck from the sharp plate edge.
(5) There are no hooks/rings or leather laces for closing the cuirass at either the front or back.
(6) The girdle plates do not meet in the centre, but appear to have a gap, with some sort of ill-defined fitment down the centre, but beneath. To be fair, Simkins does show the lacing and hooks. Why Hansen chose to invent this is a mystery, no evidence for it exists.
(7) The girdle plates are all the same depth. Our evidence suggests that the Newstead armour had a single plate, of double depth, at the bottom.
(8) Finally, the armour here is ‘waisted’. It wasn’t – this would have made it impossible to breathe. The actual form is like a cylinder made of overlapping bands. It only touches the body at the upper chest, everywhere else it is loose.
The figure is also portrayed wearing a leather ‘arming doublet’ with pteruges at the shoulders and beneath the waist. Simkins says that (quote), “the wearing of pteruges is also quite commonly represented . . ”. Beneath lorica hamata, lorica squamata or the muscle cuirass it might have been, but not beneath segmentata armour it wasn’t. Nowhere on Trajan’s Column, for example, are the soldiers shown wearing such a garment beneath the armour. I cannot locate any such use of an arming doublet with lorica segmentata armour in my references, in sculpture or pictorial form, which comes from original sources. Finally we come to the shield. This is modelled in an oval shape with what appears to be a leather cover. I do not dispute the oval shape, or the cover. The finds from Dura Europus (although from the later 3rd century) make it clear that infantry used oval shields and there are earlier military tombstones that also show this shape. However, these were flat and this one is dished. The classical legionary scutum was, of course, curved to fit around the body, but this was cylindrical and almost certainly made of laminated wood strips. The only way to achieve a dished shape like this would be either from metal or wicker – for neither of which there is any evidence for this period. In summary, then, this is a beautifully sculpted, superbly cast, highly inaccurate figure. The helmet is correct, nearly everything else is either wrong or highly unlikely. If you want to turn it into a representation of a mid to late 2nd century Roman soldier, you are going to have to do an awful lot of work, particularly on the cuirass and upper thigh areas. Basically, carve it all off and start again and probably remake the shield.