ΠΟΡΦΥΡΑ - Porphyra

A Prôtospatharios, Magistros, and Strategos Autokrator of 11 th cent.
the equipment of Georgios Maniakes and his army according to the Skylitzes Matritensis miniatures
and other artistic sources of the middle Byzantine period.
same time, carrying straps were not in use. Comparing different
shield representations where such a handle fashion is
recognizable, we note the various possibilities to combine each
other the inner shield straps 106 . So we have often a forearm belt
for guiding and handling, and another belt used only for
handling. The latter was relatively long, i.e. it was not so tight to
let the warrior ‘s hand through the opening - instead of
embracing tightly the straps with fingers - in order to have the
left hand free to carry either weapons or the horse’s reins 107 . But
we can also assume that, in case of real danger, the handle could
be firmly held, so that the shield was resistent to the enemy
blows. 108 The handle of the grip and stripes was fundamental, in
any case, for the handling and the correct use of shield during
the battle.
The handling straps - as also the carrying straps of the
shoulder belt - were fastened to the shield by rivets. The rivets
were often fastened at the external part of shield and they
contribute to the general reinforcement and decoration of the
whole shield (Plate 1A) 109 .
On Maniakes shield represented in folio 224v the rivets
may be represented by the pointed circles disposed around the
red decorative line on the external (or internal ?) surface of
shield (fig. 3). The rivets were almost arranged at determined
distances. This system was combined with the shield
ornamentation so that, as in this case, it was also part of the
shield decoration 110 .
From the miniature it is not possible to see if the shield
wore at his centre the central reinforcement buckle or umbo
normally used by the Romans since antiquity, but other kiteshields
represented in the Skilitzès Matritensis shows shields
both with and without an umbo. 111 It was called boukkolon or
omfalos in the sources of the period 112 . In our reconstruction
(plate 1A) we have copied the gilded umbo preserved in
and note 167-168 with bibliography.
106
See for instance the folios 145r, 178r of Cod. Lond. Add. 19352 (in Der Nersessian, L’illustration, fig. 233, 281) ;
the folio 312r of Cod. Taphou 14, in Nicolle, Arms and armours, fig. 34c ; the shield held by the infantryman in the
ivory casket of Victoria and Albert Museum, in Heath, Byzantine Armies, p. 34.
107 th
Kolias, Waffen, p. 120 ; see the 11 century ivory icon of Saint Demetrios in Heath, Byzantine Armies, p. 9.
108
Kolias, Waffen, p. 121 ; he remembers the episode in which Digenis Akritas, the popular hero of the homonymous
East-Roman Poem, held only the κρατηµα (handle) of his shield, after that it had been destroyed by a blow. See
Digenis Akritas, VI, 220.
109
See the specimens of Dura (Rostovtzeff, Excavations pp. 329-330 and pl. XLII; for studded decoration of shields
belonging to Romano-Lombard weaponry found in Castel Trosino, Stabio, see AAVV, Magistra Barbaritas, pp. 244-
245 figg. 118-121; and see also the East - Roman 7-8 th shield fragments exposed in Museum Crypta Balbi in Rome, in
Roma, dall’antichità al Medioevo, nel museo Nazionale Romano, Cripta Balbi, catalogue, 2001 pp. 401-402
110
Kolias, Waffen, p. 121; the effect is evident in the many shields represented in the artistic sources, see for instance,
Kolias, ...απ’των καστρων, pp. 15, 18, 38, 49.
111
Examples with three cornered bossed shields : folio 217, in Bozhkov, The miniatures, fig. 95,98; folio 28v, in
Kolias, Waffen, pl. XXV n. 1 ; folio 199v, in Cirac Estopanân, Reproducciones..., fig. p. 389; examples without bosses :
folios 178r, 230r, in Von Falkenhausen, I Bizantini, fig. 24,28 ; folio 82r, in Bozhkov, The miniatures, fig. 26.
112
See Suda III, 536, 22ff. ; Eustathios Commentarii, II, 256, 5ff., Anna Komnena, Alexiadis, XIII, 8,2; see also Kolias,
Waffen, pp. 98-102; Reiske, Commentarii, , pp. 794-795; Pio Franchi de Cavalieri, Il Menologio, pl. 215.
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