Arms and armour in antiquity and the middle ages : also a descriptive notice of modern weapons / translated from the French of M.P. Lacombe, and with a preface, notes, and one additional chapter on arms and armour in England, by Charles Boutell.

  • Paul Lacombe
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Arms and armour in antiquity and the middle ages : also a descriptive notice of modern weapons / translated from the French of M.P. Lacombe, and with a preface, notes, and one additional chapter on arms and armour in England, by Charles Boutell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    piece of Roman armour, that it generally was finished at the waist 3 and from this point it was continued by pendant straps of leather, lambrequins, cut square at the ends, and set close together, which fell over the lower part of the body and reached as far as the thighs in double and sometimes in treble ranks. The cuirass was made of two pieces, breast and back plates, united by hinges on one side, and on the Fig. n.-A Greek Cuirass, breast and back plates. other side closed with clasps 3 over the shoulders it was sus- tained by thick straps of leather, which vie may entitle êpau- lieres (shoulder-straps, or shoulder-guards). A weapon which appears to have been in general use by all classes of Greek soldiers, is a short sword or dagger, called parazonium (belt-companion), which sometimes was reduced to the proportions of a knife. Like the sword itself, this smaller weapon has a blade shaped like the sage-leaf 3 or, occasionally its blade, as in Fig. 7, No. 1, tapers in straight lines from the hilt to the point. The same weapon we shall find again in the armoury of the Romans, who borrowed it from the Greeks. [See Fig. 15, No. 4.] It was adjusted at the waist, as was the mediaeval miséricorde, on the right side, while the sword hung on the left side 3 but the ancient dagger
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