Budapest Régiségei 38. (2004) – Tanulmányok dr. Gerő Győző tiszteletére

Nagy Margit: Két késő római kori fegyveres sír az aquincumi canabae nyugati szélén 231-315

NAGY MARGIT one in Zalaszentgrót, where a writing set refers to office work in the army. Weapons and writing skills do not exclude each other even in the LateRoman, barbarized forces: the Notitia dignitatum lists various office ranks that fulfilled their services as soldiers and office clerks, working in the eastern part of the Empire together with the magister militum. Among the objects belonging to the garment it is the brooch used for fixing the soldier's gown that is the oldest and most worn. On the basis of the details characteristic of the Keller 2B version, I think that the fibula from Bécsi Road represents the transitional type of the early cross-bow brooches that can be dated between 320-340 and it was put into the grave after long use and the replacement of the middle knob. The cingulum militare of the grave in Bécsi Road is a Gala type belt. The propeller mounts were unearthed at about the waist. It is strange, however, not unique that apart from the 6 mounts belonging to a set there were also 2 cornered buckles, but there were no strap-ends among the finds of the grave. The Gala type belts, fixed by cornered buckles, were primarily spread among the military equipment of the soldiers stationing the limes of Pannónia Valeria, in the towns along the Danube - as M. Sommer, H. W. Böhme and J. Tejral say They were made and used in the 4

th century and possibly, the first half of the 5

th century, too. There is one parallel to the incised decoration of the middle part of the bow of a Keller 4 type cross-bow brooch found in Hungary (Birján, county Baranya). As the position of two of the three silver buckles suggests, they must have belonged to the sword's strap. There are millimeters of difference among the three pieces. Thorough observation has lead to the conclusion that the largest piece could have been the pattern which the two smaller buckles were made after. The differences can be seen in the shape and size of the frame of the buckles and the tongue is somewhat longer. Several parallels of the silver buckles of Bécsi Road are known from Late-Roman cemeteries of Pannónia, nevertheless, the best one comes from grave 283 of Lankhills cemetery in Britain. The grave belongs to the latest burials of the cemetery (390^110), as the latest of its three coins dates back to 388-410, the period of the Theodosius dynasty. H. W Böhme claimed that the type of the characteristic 5

th century buckles ( belt and shoe buckles) of grave Bl in Gloucester is alien among the finds of Britain, their shape being typical of the Danube area, and said that there were Germanic (Gothic) mercenaries in the 5

th century army in Britain and the round-frame buckles used to belong to their garments. There were 12 pieces of bar-shaped silver mounts unearthed from the grave at Bécsi Road, however there is no information where they used to be worn. The sets of bar-shaped mounts represent a type of Late-Roman military belts which were in use from the middle of the 4

th century onwards. Among these sets, spread from Britain to the Volga-Kama area the one found among the finds of the inhumation burial at Nijmegen/Nymwegen Boerstraat in the Netherlands is identical with the mounts from Bécsi Road. Observing the circumstances of the finds it sems that in Late-Roman military garments, in several cases, the mounts with wide military belts were worn as second belts or weapon belts. (Grave 1 Dorchester, Mucking, Nymwegen Boerstraat). By all means the bar-shaped mounts from Bécsi Road must have decorated a weapon belt. As seen in the grave in Luchistoe, the two identical sets with buckles of armed men can be interpreted as a mounted belt and a weapon belt. In the first decades of the 5

th century, bar-shaped mounts, together with the Byzanthinian angular buckles having long tongues came into use as belt sets. (Fig. 31.1) The most unique object of the grave of Bécsi Road is the silver rosetta and strap-end that concerning its position and the reconstructions by B. Stjernquist and J. Oldenstein can be identified as the end mount of the balteus. The free movement of the case was provided by the joint mount. The length of the stripe could be changed by moving the rosetta along the bar, or perhaps by the fixing under the knob. (Fig. 34.2) J. Werner has pointed out that the strap holding the sword was still in use in the western part of the Empire even after the 3

rd century, despite the fact that due to the influence of the Persian style of warfare the long, double-bladed sword spread among the Roman weapons which Persian mounted soldiers used to wear on a weapon belt around their waists. The parallel use of the shoulder strap and the Persian type long sword can be well seen on the sword depiction of the relief from Bishapur, among which on the balteus of the kneeling figure of Philippus Arabs there is a similar rosetta joined with a belt tip. (Fig. 34. 2) The end of the grip of the fragmentary long sword from Bécsi Road is a case, made from bronze and silver plates fixed by three bronze nails, with niello inlay, similar to the Gundremmingen-type protectors. There is a cover on the top and on the bottom of the grip made from pressed silver bands. The quillon was decorated by a silver-headed nail. 276