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73-454: The men (excluding the driver) sat in a large tower from which troops would fight. The elephant itself would normally be armed with thin plate armour (the Sassanids used chain mail as well as thin plate armour) and would bear a large crenelated wooden howdah on its back. Persian war elephants were trained by their rider, called a mahout , who would also ride the elephant into battle. While on

146-426: A breastplate , a burgonet , morion or cabasset and gauntlets , however, also became popular among 16th-century mercenaries , and there are many references to so-called munition armour being ordered for infantrymen at a fraction of the cost of full plate armour. This mass-produced armour was often heavier and made of lower quality metal than fine armour for commanders. Specialised jousting armour produced in

219-680: A helmet , a gorget (or bevor ), spaulders , pauldrons with gardbraces to cover the armpits as was seen in French armour, or besagews (also known as rondels ) which were mostly used in Gothic Armour, rerebraces , couters , vambraces , gauntlets , a cuirass (breastplate and backplate) with a fauld , tassets and a culet , a mail skirt, cuisses , poleyns , greaves , and sabatons . The very fullest sets, known as garnitures, more often made for jousting than war, included pieces of exchange , alternate pieces suiting different purposes, so that

292-401: A sport ( hastilude ) with less direct relevance to warfare, for example using separate specialized armour and equipment. During the 1490s, emperor Maximilian I invested a great deal of effort in perfecting the sport, for which he received his nickname of "The Last Knight". Rennen and Stechen were two sportive forms of the joust developed during the 15th century and practiced throughout

365-424: A few years, as the result of the disastrous earthquake of 551 , the students were transferred to Sidon . The dating of the event to 551: as a law student, Agathias could be in his early twenties, which would place his birth to c.  530 . He mentions leaving Alexandria for Constantinople shortly following the earthquake. Agathias visited the island of Kos , where "he witnessed the devastation caused by

438-534: A hundred epigrams , which he published together with epigrams by friends and contemporaries in a Cycle of New Epigrams or Cycle of Agathias , probably early in the reign of emperor Justin II (r. 565–578). This work largely survives in the Greek Anthology —the edition by Maximus Planudes preserves examples not found elsewhere. Agathias's poems exhibit considerable taste and elegance. He also wrote marginal notes on

511-399: A mail shirt (haubergeon or hauberk) beneath their plate armour (or coat-of-plates ). Later, full mail shirts were replaced with mail patches, called gussets , which were sewn onto a gambeson or arming jacket. Further protection for plate armour was the use of small round plates called besagews , that covered the armpit area and the addition of couters and poleyns with "wings" to protect

584-572: A portrait of Frederick the Great in 1739 still shows him in armour, while a later painting showing him as a commander in the Seven Years' War (c. 1760) depicts him without armour. Body armour made a brief reappearance in the American Civil War with mixed success. During World War I , both sides experimented with shrapnel armour, and some soldiers used their own dedicated ballistic armour such as

657-864: A powerful symbol of the Australian outback. In 1916, General Adrian of the French army provided an abdominal shield which was light in weight (approx. one kilogram) and easy to wear. A number of British officers recognised that many casualties could be avoided if effective armour were available. The first usage of the term " flak jacket " refers to the armour originally developed by the Wilkinson Sword company during World War II to help protect Royal Air Force (RAF) air personnel from flying debris and shrapnel . The Red Army also made use of ballistic steel body armour, typically chestplates, for combat engineers and assault infantry. After World War II, steel plates were soon replaced by vests made from synthetic fibre, in

730-578: A range of techniques, and further greatly increasing the cost. Elaborately decorated plate armour for royalty and the very wealthy was being produced. Highly decorated armour is often called parade armour , a somewhat misleading term as such armour might well be worn on active military service. Steel plate armour for Henry II of France , made in 1555, is covered with meticulous embossing, which has been subjected to blueing, silvering and gilding. Such work required armourers to either collaborate with artists or have artistic skill of their own; another alternative

803-610: A river in one occasion. In the Battle of the Bridge near the fall of the Sasanian Empire, the Sasanians under Bahman Jaduyah used their elite Zhayedan forces, which included war elephants, against the invading Arab Muslims under Abu Ubaid al-Thaqafi . A white elephant tore the latter from his horse with its trunk , and trampled him underfoot. The Arab Muslims suffered heavy casualties in

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876-507: A source of information about pre-Islamic Iran, providing—in summary form—"our earliest substantial evidence for the Khvadhaynamagh tradition", that later formed the basis of Ferdowsi 's Shahname and provided much of the Iranian material for al-Tabari 's History . Agathias recorded the earliest description of the rules of backgammon , which he calls τάβλη (tabula) as it

949-678: A surprise attack on Jovian 's forces. The eye-witness Ammianus Marcellinus describes the beasts as "gleaming elephants with ... cruel gaping jaws, pungent smell, and strange appearance"; at Ctesiphon, they were placed behind the Sasanian ranks, looking like "walking hills" that "by the movements of their enormous bodies, ... threatened destruction to all who came near them, dreaded as they were from past experience". But these instances were all results of "dire necessity rather than normal deployment", as they usually had little tactical impact, especially in pitched battles. When they were used in pitched battles,

1022-515: A valuable authority for the period he describes." According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition , "The author prides himself on his honesty and impartiality, but he is lacking in judgment and knowledge of facts; the work, however, is valuable from the importance of the events of which it treats". Christian commentators note the superficiality of Agathias' Christianity : "There are reasons for doubting that he

1095-406: A violent shootout with police at the town of Glenrowan in 1880. The armour was reasonably effective against bullets and made Kelly seem almost invincible to the policemen, who likened him to an evil spirit or Bunyip with one constable reporting that "[I] fired at him point blank and hit him straight in the body. But there is no use firing at Ned Kelly; he can't be hurt", however it left sections of

1168-512: A war elephant during the Battle of Rhandeia, in 62 CE. In the early Sasanian period, the war elephants were used in battles as a psychological weapon for its terrorizing effects. Later this role evolved into a logistical one, and in late Sasanian period they were used by army commanders to survey the battle scene. Sasanian elephants were under a special chief, known as the Zend−hapet , or "Commander of

1241-481: Is called tōsei gusoku (gusoku), which means modern armour. The type of gusoku , which covered the front and back of the body with a single iron plate with a raised center and a V-shaped bottom like plate armour, was specifically called nanban dou gusoku ("Western style gusoku " ) and was used by some samurai. Japanese armour makers designed bulletproof plate armour called tameshi gusoku ("bullet tested"), which allowed soldiers to continue wearing armour despite

1314-427: Is known to have erected statues to honor Agathias, his father Memnonius, and Agathias' unnamed brother. He seems to have been known to his contemporaries more as an advocatus and a poet. There are few mentions of Agathias as a historian. Few details survive of his personal life – mainly in his extant poems. One of them tells the story of his pet cat eating his partridge . Another (Gr.Anth. 7.220) responds to his seeing

1387-538: Is never mentioned, suggesting that Agathias was dead by 582. Menander Protector continued the history of Agathias, covering the period from 558 to 582. Evagrius Scholasticus alludes to Agathias' work, but he doesn't seem to have had access to the full History. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia , Agathias's Histories "abound in philosophic reflection. He is able and reliable, though he gathered his information from eye-witnesses, and not, as Procopius, in

1460-573: Is sometimes cited as the closing date of " Antiquity ". The dispersed neo-Platonists, with as much of their library as could be transported, found temporary refuge in the Persian capital of Ctesiphon , and afterwards— under treaty guarantees of security that form a document in the history of freedom of thought — at Edessa , which just a century later became one of the places where Muslim thinkers encountered ancient Greek culture and took an interest in its science and medicine. Agathias's Histories are also

1533-401: Is still a point of contention with regard to plate armour. The evolution of the 14th-century plate armour also triggered the development of various polearms . They were designed to deliver a strong impact and concentrate energy on a small area and cause damage through the plate. Maces , war hammers , and pollaxes (poleaxes) were used to inflict blunt force trauma through armour. Strong blows to

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1606-486: Is still called in Greece, in a story relating an unlucky game played by the emperor Zeno . Zeno had a stack of seven checkers, three stacks of two checkers and two blots , checkers that stand alone on a point and are therefore in danger of being put outside the board by an incoming opponent checker. Zeno threw the three dice with which the game was played and obtained 2, 5 and 6. The white and black checkers were so distributed on

1679-623: The Burgundian Wars , Wars of the Roses , Polish–Teutonic Wars , Eighty Years' War , French Wars of Religion , Italian Wars , Hungarian–Ottoman Wars , Ottoman–Habsburg wars , Polish–Ottoman Wars , a significant part of the Hundred Years' War , and even the Thirty Years' War . The most heavily armoured troops of the period were heavy cavalry , such as the gendarmes and early cuirassiers , but

1752-479: The Description of Greece ( Ἑλλάδος περιήγησις ) of Pausanias . Almost equally valued are Agathias's Histories , which he started in the reign of Justin II. He explains his own motivation in writing it, as simply being unwilling to let "the momentous events of his own times" go unrecorded. He credits his friends with encouraging him to start this endeavor, particularly one Eutychianus. This work in five books, On

1825-628: The Kofun period (250–538), iron plate cuirasses ( tankō ) and helmets were being made. Plate armour was used in Japan during the Nara period (646–793); both plate and lamellar armours have been found in burial mounds, and haniwa (ancient clay figures) have been found depicting warriors wearing full armour. In Japan, the warfare of the Sengoku period (1467–1615) required large quantities of armour to be produced for

1898-601: The Late Middle Ages . Meanwhile, makeshift steel armour for protection against shrapnel and early forms of ballistic vests began development from the mid-19th century to the present day. Plate armour was also famously used in Australia by the Kelly Gang, a group of four bushrangers led by Edward "Ned" Kelly , who had constructed four suits of improvised armour from plough mouldboards and whose crime spree culminated with

1971-486: The 10th to the 13th century, mail armour was so popular in Europe, that it was known as the age of mail. Partial plate armour, made out of bronze, which protected the chest and the lower limbs, was used by the ancient Greeks , as early as the late Bronze Age . The Dendra panoply protected the entire torso on both sides and included shoulder and neck protections. Less restrictive and heavy armour would become more widespread in

2044-508: The 15th and 16th centuries. The full suit of armour, also referred to as a panoply , is thus a feature of the very end of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period. Its popular association with the " medieval knight ” is due to the specialised jousting armour which developed in the 16th century. Full suits of Gothic plate armour and Milanese plate armour were worn on the battlefields of

2117-445: The 15th century. Mail was made from hundreds of small interlinking iron or steel rings held together by rivets . It was made this way so that it would be able to follow the contour of the wearer's body, maximizing comfort. Mail armour was designed mainly to defend against thrusting and cutting weapons, rather than bludgeons . Typical clothing articles made of mail at the time would be hooded cloaks, gloves, trousers , and shoes. From

2190-425: The 16th century. The armours used for these two respective styles of the joust were known as Rennzeug and Stechzeug , respectively. The Stechzeug in particular developed into extremely heavy armour which completely inhibited the movement of the rider, in its latest forms resembling an armour-shaped cabin integrated into the horse armour more than a functional suit of armour. Such forms of sportive equipment during

2263-723: The 1950s, made of either boron carbide , silicon carbide , or aluminium oxide . They were issued to the crew of low-flying aircraft, such as the UH-1 and UC-123 , during the Vietnam War . The synthetic fibre Kevlar was introduced in 1971, and most ballistic vests since the 1970s are based on kevlar, optionally with the addition of trauma plates to reduce the risk of blunt trauma injury. Such plates may be made of ceramic, metal (steel or titanium) or synthetic materials. Agathias Agathias Scholasticus ( Ancient Greek : Ἀγαθίας σχολαστικός ; c.  AD 530  – 582 /594)

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2336-439: The 1st century BC and 4th century AD. Single plates of metal armour were again used from the late 13th century on, to protect joints and shins, and these were worn over a mail hauberk . Gradually the number of plate components of medieval armour increased, protecting further areas of the body, and in barding those of a cavalryman's horse. Armourers developed skills in articulating the lames or individual plates for parts of

2409-610: The American Brewster Body Shield , although none were widely produced. The heavy cavalry armour ( cuirass ) used by the German , British , and French empires during the Napoleonic Wars , were actively used until the first few months of World War I , when French cuirassiers went to meet the enemy dressed in armour outside of Paris . The cuirass represents the final stage of the tradition of plate armour descended from

2482-715: The Great at the Indus, the Danube and against the Scythians in 512 BC. Neither Xenophon nor Herodotus mention war elephants in their accounts of these earlier campaigns. Since the early 1st century AD, elephants were also used as a symbol of kingship in Iran. This notion was adopted from the Greco-Bactrians . Additionally, there was at least one instance of the use of a Parthian war elephant. According to Tacitus , Vologases I of Parthia rode on

2555-595: The Indians", as they were from India . Shapur I may have used war elephants against Valerian . But the beasts were most notably used in Shapur II 's forces. Emperor Julian mentions their use in the wars of 337–361 , carrying "iron towers full of archers" (possibly hyperbole; he was not an eye-witness to the particular battle he described). The elephants were later used by the Sasanians against Julian during his campaign in 363 , including at Ctesiphon , Samarra , and later in

2628-555: The Reign of Justinian , continues the history of Procopius , whose style it imitates, and is the chief authority for the period 552–558. It deals chiefly with the struggles of the Imperial army, under the command of general Narses , against the Goths , Vandals , Franks and Persians . The work survives, but seems incomplete. Passages of his history indicate that Agathias had planned to cover both

2701-460: The Sasanian elephants. Procopius has mentioned wooden turrets that allowed the Sasanians to tower over the walls of a besieged city and shoot arrows. During the Lazic War , Mihr-Mihroe 's eight elephants proved effective in the sieges of Archaeopolis and other Lazic fortifications. Miscellaneous applications of the elephants by the Sasanians are also reported; Agathias mentions their use to blockade

2774-498: The battle. The elephants were also used in the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah , but was unsuccessful. The war elephants were also used by Saffarids , Ghaznavids , Buyids to a lesser extent, and also by Khwarezmids in the Samarkand area. The Timurids also used them in the Battle of Ankara . Plate armour Plate armour is a historical type of personal body armour made from bronze , iron , or steel plates, culminating in

2847-455: The body that needed to be flexible, and in fitting armour to the individual wearer like a tailor. The cost of a full suit of high quality fitted armour, as opposed to the cheaper munition armour (equivalent of ready-to-wear ) was enormous, and inevitably restricted to the wealthy who were seriously committed to either soldiering or jousting . The rest of an army wore inconsistent mixtures of pieces, with mail still playing an important part. In

2920-539: The capital. Evagrius Scholasticus and Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos describe Agathias as a rhetor ("public speaker"). The Suda and a passage of John of Nikiû call him "Agathias the scholastic". He is known to have served as pater civitatis ("Father of the City", effectively a magistrate ) of Smyrna . He is credited with constructing public latrines for the city. While Agathias mentions these buildings, he fails to mention his own role in constructing them. Myrina

2993-719: The centre of the Persian line, and they made such an impression on the Macedonian troops that Alexander felt the need to sacrifice to the God of Fear the night before the battle. Despite this the Persians lost the battle, relinquishing the Achaemenid empire to Alexander. Some claim that they had been used previously in the Greek campaign of King Xerxes I of Persia, and even further back at the time of Darius

Persian war elephants - Misplaced Pages Continue

3066-546: The cuirassiers throughout the European wars of religion . After the mid-17th century, plate armour was mostly reduced to the simple breastplate or cuirass worn by cuirassiers , with the exception of the Polish Hussars that still used considerable amounts of plate. This was due to the development of the musket , which could penetrate armour at a considerable distance. For infantry, the breastplate gained renewed importance with

3139-404: The development of shrapnel in the late Napoleonic Wars . The use of steel plates sewn into flak jackets dates to World War II , and was replaced by more modern materials such as fibre-reinforced plastic , since the mid-20th century. Mail armour is a layer of protective clothing worn most commonly from the 9th to the 13th century, though it would continue to be worn under plate armour until

3212-493: The earthquake". At the fourth year of his legal studies, Agathias and fellow students Aemilianus, John and Rufinus are mentioned making a joint offering to Michael the Archangel at Sosthenium, where they prayed for a "prosperous future". He returned to Constantinople in 554 to finish his training, and practised as an advocatus ( scholasticus ) in the courts. John of Epiphania reports that Agathias practiced his profession in

3285-417: The elephants were usually positioned in the rear, in contrast to the classical Carthaginian and Hellenistic practices. The Sasanian elephants were most effective in siege warfare against fortified cities, where they probably carried turrets or howdahs and were used as shooting platforms. According to Procopius, emperor Justinian I had raised Dara 's city walls by 30 feet (9.1 m) to hinder attacks by

3358-625: The ever-growing armies of foot soldiers ( ashigaru ). Simple munition-quality chest armours ( dō ) and helmets ( kabuto ) were mass-produced. In 1543, the Portuguese brought matchlock firearms ( tanegashima ) to Japan. As Japanese swordsmiths began mass-producing matchlock firearms and firearms became used in war, the use of Lamellar armour ( ō-yoroi and dō-maru ), previously used as samurai armour, gradually decreased. Japanese armour makers started to make new types of armour made of larger iron plate and plated leather. This new suit of armour

3431-458: The exercise of high military and political offices. He delights in depicting the manners, customs, and religion of the foreign peoples of whom he writes; the great disturbances of his time, earthquakes, plagues, famines, attract his attention, and he does not fail to insert "many incidental notices of cities, forts, and rivers, philosophers, and subordinate commanders." Many of his facts are not to be found elsewhere, and he has always been looked on as

3504-465: The fashion with 18th-century nobles and generals long after they had ceased to be militarily useful on the battlefield due to the advent of inexpensive muskets . The development of powerful firearms made all but the finest and heaviest armour obsolete. The increasing power and availability of firearms and the nature of large, state-supported infantry led to more portions of plate armour being cast off in favour of cheaper, more mobile troops. Leg protection

3577-519: The final phase of the joust in 16th-century Germany gave rise to modern misconceptions about the heaviness or clumsiness of "medieval armour", as notably popularised by Mark Twain 's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court . The extremely heavy helmets of the Stechzeug are explained by the fact that the aim was to detach the crest of the opponent's helmet, resulting in frequent full impact of

3650-539: The final years of Justin II and the fall of the Huns but the work in its known form includes neither. Menander Protector implies that Agathias died before having a chance to complete his history. The latest event mentioned in the Histories is the death of the Persian king Khosrau I (r. 531–579); which indicates that Agathias was still alive in the reign of Tiberius II Constantine (r. 578–582). The emperor Maurice (r. 582–602)

3723-496: The form of the muscle cuirass during classic antiquity before being superseded by other types of armour. Parthian and Sassanian heavy cavalry known as Clibanarii used cuirasses made out of scales or mail and small, overlapping plates in the manner of the manica for the protection of arms and legs. Plate armour in the form of the Lorica segmentata was used by the Roman empire between

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3796-471: The groin and limbs exposed; during the infamous "Glenrowan Affair", gang member Joe Byrne was killed by a bullet to the groin, Kelly was captured after a fifteen-minute last stand against police (having sustained a total of 28 bullet wounds over his body), and the remaining two members are thought to have committed suicide shortly after. Although the recovered suits were almost immediately mismatched, they have since been reorganized and restored and today remain as

3869-506: The head could result in concussion , even if the armour is not penetrated. Fluted plate was not only decorative, but also reinforced the plate against bending under striking or blunt impact. This offsets against the tendency for flutes to catch piercing blows. In armoured techniques taught in the German school of swordsmanship , the attacker concentrates on these "weak spots", resulting in a fighting style very different from unarmoured sword-fighting. Because of this weakness, most warriors wore

3942-476: The heavy use of firearms in the late 16th century. In the 17th century, warfare in Japan came to an end, but the samurai continued to use plate armour until the end of the samurai era in the 1860s, with the known last use of samurai armour occurring in 1877, during the Satsuma rebellion . By about 1420, complete suits of plate armour had been developed in Europe. A full suit of plate armour would have consisted of

4015-412: The helmet and neckguard design was reformed to produce the so-called Nürnberg armour, many of them masterpieces of workmanship and design. As firearms became better and more common on the battlefield, the utility of full armour gradually declined, and full suits became restricted to those made for jousting which continued to develop. The decoration of fine armour greatly increased in the period, using

4088-507: The iconic suit of armour entirely encasing the wearer. Full plate steel armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages , especially in the context of the Hundred Years' War , from the coat of plates (popular in late 13th and early 14th century) worn over mail suits during the 14th century, a century famous for the Transitional armour , in that plate gradually replaced chain mail. In Europe , full plate armour reached its peak in

4161-580: The infantry troops of the Swiss mercenaries and the Landsknechts also took to wearing lighter suits of "three quarters" munition armour , leaving the lower legs unprotected. The use of plate armour began to decline in the early 17th century, but it remained common both among the nobility (e.g., the Emperor Ferdinand II , Louis XIII , Philip IV of Spain , Maurice of Orange and Gustavus Adolphus ) and

4234-402: The inside of the joint. German so-called Maximilian armour of the early 16th century is a style using heavy fluting and some decorative etching, as opposed to the plainer finish on 15th-century white armour . The shapes include influence from Italian styles. This era also saw the use of closed helms, as opposed to the 15th-century-style sallets and barbutes . During the early 16th century,

4307-559: The lance to the helmet. By contrast, the Rennen was a type of joust with lighter contact. Here, the aim was to hit the opponent's shield. The specialised Rennzeug was developed on the request of Maximilian, who desired a return to a more agile form of joust compared to the heavily armoured "full contact" Stechen . In the Rennzeug , the shield was attached to the armour with a mechanism of springs and would detach itself upon contact. Plate armour

4380-494: The late 15th to 16th century was heavier, and could weigh as much as 50 kg (110 lb), as it was not intended for free combat, it did not need to permit free movement, the only limiting factor being the maximum weight that could be carried by a warhorse of the period. The medieval joust has its origins in the military tactics of heavy cavalry during the High Middle Ages . Since the 15th century, jousting had become

4453-441: The move, the elephants required large paths to cut to accommodate their passage. Training elephants was a difficult task and their upkeep was expensive because of their high nutritional demands. Persians used war elephants at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. The battle raged between king Alexander the Great of Macedon and king Darius III of Persia . The Persians had 15 Indian-trained war elephants, which were placed at

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4526-534: The movement of armourers; the Renaissance Greenwich armour was made by a royal workshop near London that had imported Italian, Flemish and (mostly) German craftsmen, though it soon developed its own unique style. Ottoman Turkey also made wide use of plate armour, but incorporated large amounts of mail into their armour, which was widely used by shock troops such as the Janissary Corps. Plate armour gave

4599-658: The suit could be configured for a range of different uses, for example fighting on foot or on horse. By the Late Middle Ages even infantry could afford to wear several pieces of plate armour. Armour production was a profitable and pervasive industry during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A complete suit of plate armour made from well-tempered steel would weigh around 15–25 kg (33–55 lb). The wearer remained highly agile and could jump, run and otherwise move freely as

4672-418: The tomb of the courtesan Lais of Corinth , implying a visit to that city, which he refers to using the poetic name Ephyra. No full account of his life survives. Literature, however, was Agathias' favorite pursuit, and he remains best known as a poet. Of his Daphniaca , a collection of short poems in hexameter on 'love and romance' in nine books, only the introduction has survived. But he also composed over

4745-430: The wearer very good protection against sword cuts, as well against spear thrusts, and provided decent defense against blunt weapons . The evolution of plate armour also triggered developments in the design of offensive weapons. While this armour was effective against cuts or strikes, their weak points could be exploited by thrusting weapons, such as estocs , poleaxes , and halberds . The effect of arrows and bolts

4818-404: The weight of the armour was spread evenly throughout the body. The armour was articulated and covered a man's entire body completely from neck to toe. In the 15th and 16th centuries, plate-armoured soldiers were the nucleus of every army. Large bodies of men-at-arms numbering thousands, or even more than ten thousand men (approximately 60% to 70% of French armies were men-at-arms and the percentage

4891-447: Was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558. Agathias was a native of Myrina (Mysia) , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor . His father was Memnonius. His mother was presumably Pericleia. A brother of Agathias is mentioned in primary sources, but his name has not survived. Their probable sister Eugenia is known by name. The Suda clarifies that Agathias

4964-509: Was a Christian, though it seems improbable that he could have been at that late date a genuine pagan" ( Catholic Encyclopedia ). "No overt pagan could expect a public career during the reign of Justinian, yet the depth and breadth of Agathias' culture was not Christian" ( Kaldellis ). Agathias ( Histories 2.31) is the only authority for the story of Justinian's closing of the re-founded Platonic (actually neoplatonic ) Academy in Athens (529), which

5037-516: Was active in the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I , mentioning him as a contemporary of Paul the Silentiary , Macedonius of Thessalonica and Tribonian . Agathias mentions being present in Alexandria as a law student at the time when an earthquake destroyed Berytus ( Beirut ). The law school of Berytus had been recognized as one of the three official law schools of the empire (533). Within

5110-676: Was also high in other countries), were fighting on foot, wearing full plate next to archers and crossbowmen. This was commonly seen in the Western European armies, especially during the Hundred Years War , the Wars of the Roses or the Italian Wars . European leaders in armouring techniques were Northern Italians , especially from Milan , and Southern Germans , who had somewhat different styles. But styles were diffused around Europe, often by

5183-420: Was the first part to go, replaced by tall leather boots. By the beginning of the 18th century, only field marshals , commanders and royalty remained in full armour on the battlefield, more as a sign of rank than for practical considerations. It remained fashionable for monarchs to be portrayed in armour during the first half of the 18th century (late Baroque period), but even this tradition became obsolete. Thus,

5256-514: Was to take designs from ornament prints and other prints, as was often done. Daniel Hopfer was an etcher of armour by training, who developed etching as a form of printmaking . Other artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger produced designs for armour. The Milanese armourer Filippo Negroli , from a leading dynasty of armourers, was the most famous modeller of figurative relief decoration on armour. Reduced plate armour, typically consisting of

5329-506: Was widely used by most armies until the end of the 17th century for both foot and mounted troops such as the cuirassiers , London lobsters , dragoons , demi-lancers and Polish hussars . The infantry armour of the 16th century developed into the Savoyard type of three-quarters armour by 1600. Full plate armour was expensive to produce and remained therefore restricted to the upper strata of society; lavishly decorated suits of armour remained

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