The Roman Cavalry Saddle

Abstract

By PETER CONNOLLY and CAROL VAN DRIEL-MURRAY N o Roman saddle survives complete. For its reconstruction we are therefore reduced to depictions or models of saddled horses and to making sense out of what archaeological evidence remains. Since Groenman-van Waateringe's study of 1967,' it is clear that the archaeological evidence for saddles consists of the leather outer casing and metal horn stiffeners: neither of them, however, have ever been found in association. Since a previous publication in Britannia on the Roman saddle, 2 the first author has had the opportunity to examine the eight bronze horn plates from Newstead in Scotland, now in the Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh. 3 In this same period, the second author had gathered together all recognizable leather fragments of saddles known to date, making them available for general study and published in the same volume as a further important collection of saddle leathers from Carlisle, England. 4 Several of the newly-published pieces shed new light on the construction of the saddle and it seems necessary to reassess the views put forward earlier."" The purpose of a cavalry saddle is twofold, to provide a firm seat for the rider and to shift the weight of the rider away from the horse"s backbone to its flanks. The construction of the saddle must, to some extent, have compensated also for the absence of stirrups. Any interpretation of the surviving material must work within these basic practical constraints. The outer form of the saddle is not in dispute: 6 it is a pad with four upstanding horns which on depictions seem to grip the rider firmly in his seat. The back horns stand upright, supporting the buttocks, while the front horns project sideways over the thigh, as can be seen in particular on the tombstone of Romanius from Mainz and a Jupiter statue from Vienne-en-Val in France (FIGS I and 2). 1 This is not always obvious from photographs, which are usually taken from the front. In addition there are various straps, like the girth, breast band and breaching which are functional, and others, the so-called triplet straps, which are not. All the straps can be extensively decorated with beads, phalerae, bronze

The origins of saddles and riding technology in East Asia: discoveries from the Mongolian Altai

“…Across Eurasia, by the start of the first century AD, simple saddles were adapted to provide a greater degree of security. In western Eurasia, Roman military saddles incorporated four large ‘horns’ and handholds to give the mounted soldier greater stability (de Camp 1960); rigid internal components may have also been included (Connolly & van Driel-Murray 1991) but this is disputed (Stepanova 2021). Early, semi-structured saddles probably gave greater comfort and security to rider and horse, enabling mounted and armoured soldiers to engage more directly with blunt weaponry and swords (Gawronski 2004).…”

El gobierno del caballo montado en la antigüedad clásica con especial referencia al caso de Iberia. Bocados, espuelas y la cuestión de la silla de montar, estribos y herraduras

“…Los dos traseros, verticales, sujetan las nalgas, mientras que los delanteros, inclinados hacia los lados, encajan bajo ellos los muslos del jinete. Su forma general era conocida por relieves como el monumento de los Julios en St. Remy (Sur de Francia) (Connolly, van Driel-Murray, 1991), pero sólo el trabajo experimental llevado a cabo en los años ochenta por Peter Connolly, y el estudio detallado por parte de Carol van Driel Murray de las piezas de cuero conservadas en yacimientos británicos y holandeses (y en especial la de Valkenburg), que originalmente forraban las sillas de montar, ha permitido realizar reconstrucciones modernas fiables (Connolly, van DrielMurray, 1991). La silla se colocaba sobre una manta, y se aseguraba mediante cincha y petral (Connolly, 1986;1989:62-63;Connolly, van Driel-Murray, 1991:33).…”

Caballos en Arcilla De La Segunda Edad Del Hierro en La Península Ibérica

“…Por lo que se ve, no habría problema en desplazar a época imperial romana todas estas piezas con mantas curvas o quizá silla; pero con ello no haríamos sino desplazar también el problema, porque la silla romana es completamente diferente de esta especie de 'silla inglesa' flexible, contando con cuatro borrenes muy marcados y altos para asentar bien al jinete que no llevaba estribos, y un marco rígido de madera, todo lo cual se colocaba sobre una manta rectangular (e.g. Connolly, van Driel 1991;Dixon, Southern 1992:70 ss. ;Junkelmann, 1990Junkelmann, -1992.…”