- The Tavern -

[Diocle]

Beautiful!

You could even look for the Legion's symbol to place it somewhere on the shield, as did Angus with some of his III century artworks. In this case a centaur I think.

[Sertorio]

[Diocle]

I love you Sertorio! "Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?"

[wulfgar610]

This is a precious gift SBH, a precious gift! Christmas time is coming and this is a beautiful present, thank you very much.

Few points that have impressed me mostly:

1 - The transition between the one-piece helmets and segmented helmets was a process due to a mutual influence and exchange with the Sasanian world, occupying a long time span between between the late III and the IV century, at the time of Constantine this process was almost complete. Interesting the analysis of the basket skeleton helmets even in relation to the Trajan Column.
1a - All the new segmented types were laminated with silver and copper: prof Miks, even in front of a fire squad of waffen SS, ready to open fire on me, I would repeat again and again that the amount of exemplars found doesn't justify such assumption.
1b - The production times of the new segmented types were not shorter than the previous types: again, not even a full Waffen SS squad would push me to accept this absurd statement, it collides with logic in such a way that it almost destroys it. I can't follow Prof. Miks on this ground, but he's not a an engineer and this is fundamental in understanding his assumptions.

Generally the late Roman period demonstated a hierarchical system where only those of privileged rank wore certain types of gold and silver decoration. Hence if all helmets were covered with two ounces of silver or so, then only officers and cavalry were wearing helmets at all.

[Sertorio]

I love you Sertorio! "Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?"

AH if only you looked like that...So and for the II Parthica. Any ideas for a shield device? I am planning on doing about 4 Limitanei shields for the Eastern Roman Empire and four more for the WRE.

[Diocle]

AH if only you looked like that...So and for the II Parthica. Any ideas for a shield device? I am planning on doing about 4 Limitanei shields for the Eastern Roman Empire and four more for the WRE.

Well, some time ago, I was wondering about some concept, but I never started drawing, even because actually I'm not at home and I'm using an old laptop not even properly mine:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is a nice detail from a stone coming from the Antonine Wall it's the marking of the men belonging to the Legio II Augusta (Capricorn and Pegasus) and it's perfect for a square shield (even though all the shields depicted on the Notitia Dignitatum can easily be adapted to the internal geometry of a squared-shield, I tested this idea on great part of the Notitia drawings, and believe me, it works, it works surprisingly well! I need just to find few weeks to make the drawings, sadly I haven't weeks to do such a work and this is sad ):



Then few interesting concepts from the Sarcophagus Portonaccio (III century):









Then, just few examples of pics I find inspirational (actually I find millions pics 'inspirational', but this means nothing, of course):



Then the famous Herculiani and Joviani shields of the Arch of Galerius:



Anyway I think that any pics concerning the legionary totemic and astrological animals are historically accurate, at least until some bastard will be able to prove the contrary:

I Minervia, Aries, Antoninianus by Carausius, 286 AD.



Aureus of Victorinus, concerning Legio XXX Ulpia (Capricorn) and its loyalty:



Then a Denarius of Gallienus with the Capricorn of the Legio XXII Primigenia (I love those guys!):



Denarii of Gallienus, with the Bull of the Legio X Gemina, and the Pegasus of the II Adiutrix:


Denarius, Gallienus, the Lion emblem of the Legio IV Flavia:



and so on .. you can find the coins and more, on the not-new but still interesting work "Imperial Roman Legionary AD 161-284" by Ross Cowan.

Then there's still the bas-relief of the Arch of .. the bastard Son of Constantius Chlorus, there is a shield (actually more than one) which is very, very interesting but I should go there and try to jump on the monument to take a closer pic, and nowadays I would be fired on the spot! .. after Paris, Rome is a militarized place!

[Lt.-Col. Dan]

http://i.imgur.com/jEaReXm.jpg[/IMG][/SPOILER]

Of course is stolen... Aren't those figures on the left Dacians?

[Diocle]

Of course is stolen... Aren't those figures on the left Dacians?

Yes it's "stolen" of course! Sorry.

Now coming to your question about the Arch:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The relief is the so called "Rilievo Aureliano" and it depicts the departure for the war of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.



The history of the Arch of Constantine is really complex and variously interpreted, anyway in short: the 8 statues of Dacian captives are from the Trajan's times, the 8 round bas-reliefs, mounted above the minor arches, come from the time of Hadrian, the 8 rectangular bas-reliefs, one of which you can see in the pic above, instead belong to the time of Marcus Aurelius. The Arch was built using different sculpted materials coming from different times and places of Rome (and also the arch itself probably ... but this is another story).



If you bear reading the Italian text, the site of the "Enciclopedia Italiana" is really a good reading on the matter: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/...ostantiniana)/

[juanplay]

why didnt Constantine bother in building his own sculptures instead of stealing from public buildings?, he certainly had the resources and the skilled craftsmen to do it.

[wulfgar610]

why didnt Constantine bother in building his own sculptures instead of stealing from public buildings?, he certainly had the resources and the skilled craftsmen to do it.

They didn't call it the Decline of the Roman Empire for nothing! The great flowering of artwork seen at the dawn of the of classical period continued in some form. In the second century AD we still see the arts prospering. But great artworks require the patronage that keeps artisans, skilled, competitive and motivated. The third century AD disasters became a cultural nadir and Constantine inherited this. The older Greek demagogues devoted such great resources to artwork (Nietzsche was impressed).....man does not live by bread alone! We might see attempted revivals but nothing of the grandeur of the older days. Not too mention that the artwork was all too pagan!

And in any case, Constantine was in haste! However one great work was initiated in Constantinople, the transcription of old texts from crumbling papyrus to vellum codex. Even Wulfie's twisted spirit applauds such an effort!

From the previous "modern" centuries we see artwork that that was almost perfect copies of the ancient great ones.......where are they today? Order some neo-classical sculpture today? How far would you get?

No amount of material power can equal what time, silence and the passion of the devoted artist can bring us! Where are they today, in a world gone mad with screaming commercialism?

[juanplay]

I know the flow of private money into public buildings declines in the third century and then ceases almost completely in the fourth century (thanks to the fact that the city councils and the local elites became parasites living off the state instead of providing for their cities) but surely the roman state had enough money to build one lousy arch, after all it had the resources to equip and enlist new soldiers after it lost almost a 100.000 soldiers during the collapse of the tetrarchy.

[Joar]

Good one! I really like the patina!

[Lt.-Col. Dan]

Now coming to your question about the Arch:

The history of the Arch of Constantine is really complex and variously interpreted, anyway in short: the 8 statues of Dacian captives are from the Trajan's times, the 8 round bas-reliefs, mounted above the minor arches, come from the time of Hadrian, the 8 rectangular bas-reliefs, one of which you can see in the pic above, instead belong to the time of Marcus Aurelius. The Arch was built using different sculpted materials coming from different times and places of Rome (and also the arch itself probably ... but this is another story).

Thank you for your information, Diocle. Well, the Dacians, during Constantine, time, hardly could have been met on the battlefield, since most of them were subjects of the Roman Empire - with the exception of the Costoboci and Carpi who often, alone or allied with the Goths and Sarmatians*, attacked the empire. Actually, some emperors took the title of Carpicus Maximus after victories against them.

*those are the people that created the Santana de Mures - Cerneakhov archeological culture, ussualy asociated with the Goths.

EDIT: Actually, I think Dacicus Maximus was used to in conjuction to victories against Dacian tribes from outside the empire.

[Sertorio]

Good one! I really like the patina!

Thanks for the feedback. Always good to receive such a nice compliment from a master.

[wulfgar610]

but surely the roman state had enough money to build one lousy arch,

I see, the demand economy....me want, me get! Well not so simple. First of all the artisans of caliber are required and by this time they had made the UN endangered species list. They say there is 180,000 tonnes of above ground gold in the world, the FED would like it if there was more, but why not? There are limits to what power and money can achieve.

[juanplay]

Well, Theodosius certainly had the money and artisans to make his own forum, cant see why Constantine didnt. Also let us remember that Constantine carried out several reconstruction projects and continue some that were initiated during the short reign of Maxentius. Steven Tuck in his book "A History of Roman Art" states:

"Part of this work was the usual sort of rebuilding and repair work expected of emperors, such as his restoration and expansion of the seating area of the Circus Maximus. It also included large-scale new construction, an element of imperial responsibility as established by Augustus. Before 315 ce he began the Baths of Constantine in Rome, the last of the immense imperial bath complexes in the city. This structure was similar in scale, rooms, and materials to the previous bathing establishments such as the Baths of Caracalla and Diocletian. It was constructed on the Quirinal Hill near the Markets of Trajan with huge walls of brick-faced concrete roofed with concrete vaults and domes of the type preserved in the Baths of Diocletian. This style of construction was also used for the Basilica Nova adjacent to the Forum Romanum

So, it seems artisans were still around, how else would you explain these marvelous works of craftmanship:

[Diocle]

In my opinion, you're both right.

The matter is complex and History of Art doesn't perfectly overlap main history. Art is the product of many factors acting on the subjects recipient of the artworks, on the subjects producing the objects, and on the artistic creations themselves, considered not only as objects but also as objects and subjects of linguistic communication.

This object:

.. it's a chair designed by Marcel Breuer, between 1928/'29, it's a very famous chair of an extremely high quality design, representing the top of the culture and of the artistic production of the European "avant garde" at the beginning of XX century (yes Mag, it's the last century ... again!), personally I'd easily kill a human being to put my hands on the original prototype, or at least on an exemplar belonging to the first serie. What's the value of this object? How can we set a shareable market value for the Breuer chair? Is it its value an absolute artistic value, or is it a relative value, related to its artistic meaning as exemplar of a historical and cultural context? From where does it come the quality of this object? Why should it be considered better or worse than this second object of the same kind coming from another age?

.. In which way should one of them be better than the other? In which way could we assign an absolute value to both the chairs and how can we set a hierarchy between them? How can we understand why at the time of Louis XIV a chair had to be made of that particular wood, had to be sculpted by masters ebonists and had to be dressed with the best fabrics you can imagine, meanwhile, at the time of Mr. Breuer, the main target it was producing a chair with the best structural performance, in relation to its weight and to the weight it could host? We can we safely state that Mr. Breuer's aesthetics is based on the technical detail of the production of tubular steel so that it could look like it was built without junctions, instead, the main target of any master carpenter of the XVIII century, it was creating an object showing an artistic language of classical inspiration; so, how can we set a value for those objects? How can we relate them in any way?

Another example: Why today this object is considered a Status Symbol sold at the huge price of 7.400 Euro?



While this object, handmade at the end of XVIII century using luxury materials and still working, is sold at "just" 2.200 Euro?



The quality of the second object is absolute: fine handwork, precious materials, wonderful French mechanics still working, art and refined aesthetic taste. Yes, the Panerai quality is unquestionable, but it's an industrial product made of steel and without any particular aesthetic value in terms of art and manual ability, so, why do we see such a large difference of price between them? From where does it come the value of Panerai? History? Is it just the fact that it was used by Italian and German Navy Officers involved in very dangerous diving actions during WW2?

.. So, have we to suppose that for us, nowadays, WW2 is enough to level up the value of an object so much? Or is it just for the fact that some famous American actor has decided to display a new weird watch on the Croisette? Or maybe because Hollywood has shown many Panerai in the last action movies?

In which way does our aesthetics change during the course of the time? In which way are they working history and tradition in setting the individual value of an object? And more: is this value related to the artistic and technical qualities intrinsic to the object itself, or is it based on the simple historical contest of the object? Is it possible establishing a universal language to evaluate art and its products? Is it still possible building a common aesthetic language, based on an international shared grammar made of signs, symbols, structural syntagmas and recognizable imagery? Or better: has it ever been possible establishing a universal scale of values in artistic creation capable of passing through the becoming of historical time without changing?

If we find any answer to questions like those few I've exposed, perhaps we'll be able to understand why the Romans during the II century loved and used this artistic tongue:



and then, a century later, they chose to use this languge to describe the same subject, the Power.

[Majorien]

The good side of what you describng Diocle, is that you can go in an auction in Drouot and buy some historical pieces cheaper than an ikea product. It's insane, but cool for us !!

[wulfgar610]

and then, a century later, they chose to use this language to describe the same subject, the Power.

The second Imperial likeness from the latter century is laughable. It can be seen in the coins as well. Around the middle of the 3rd century AD, the dam broke on the culture of the Empire. Roma itself went from a massive entity of over a million people (impressive even by today's standards) and plummeted towards half that. More recent findings suggest the Empire was a far more massive entity than previously imagined. The older opinion was of a total population 50 million or so, but perhaps now considered to be double that. The older opinion was that these were some antique fuddy-duddy Greeco-Romans. A little bit to be admired, but a silly people and not us clever moderns. But no, they were much smarter than we gave them credit for and we moderns not as outstandingly smart as we like to think we are.
The Empire back then, was the West, was Europe. What was outside it, didn't add up to much in the Western half of the old World. It was Western civilization Mark I and we are merely Mark II. The vast surplus of productivity that supported so many common men and so many fine artisans broke. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear! You can't snap your fingers and get want you want when nothing is in place to support it!

[Diocle]

The second Imperial likeness from the latter century is laughable. It can be seen in the coins as well. Around the middle of the 3rd century AD, the dam broke on the culture of the Empire. Roma itself went from a massive entity of over a million people (impressive even by today's standards) and plummeted towards half that. More recent findings suggest the Empire was a far more massive entity than previously imagined. The older opinion was of a total population 50 million or so, but perhaps now considered to be double that. The older opinion was that these were some antique fuddy-duddy Greeco-Romans. A little bit to be admired, but a silly people and not us clever moderns. But no, they were much smarter than we gave them credit for and we moderns not as outstandingly smart as we like to think we are.
The Empire back then, was the West, was Europe. What was outside it, didn't add up to much in the Western half of the old World. It was Western civilization Mark I and we are merely Mark II. The vast surplus of productivity that supported so many common men and so many fine artisans broke. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear! You can't snap your fingers and get want you want when nothing is in place to support it!

I pretty much agree with your post, wulfgar, but, at this point, a doubt arises in my mind: can we be called "pessimists"?
Is it pessimism considering it as an actual drop in quality and artistic inspiration (or ability) what happened since the third century?
Is it pessimism, watching at the reality as it is, refusing to add sugar to the coffee? Nowadays is it pessimism considering dead and lost, what actually is dead and what actually is lost forever?
I find really a hard duty watching at these faces and considering them just an evolution of the taste, it's really hard for me avoiding any severe judgment on the disappearance of beauty during the Late Antiquity.
I don't say the Byzantine and Medieval world was not able to identify the concept of beauty, but, how can I avoid mourning the loss of the Classical Greek-Roman beauty?
How can I avoid to consider the Crisis and the Fall of Rome, as an actual crisis and an actual fall?