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p.29
These details from a 10th-century ivory casket depict Armenian infantry in Byzantine employ.
Most of the Empire’s military aristocracy were of Armenian ancestry and in the 9th and 10th centuries Armenians formed about twenty-five per cent of the Empire’s armed forces or possibly even more.
p.30
Another fine study of skutatoi equipment from the Joshua Roll, showing corselets with pteruges, breast-bands and shoulder-pieces.
The neck-guards of their helmets appear to be flexible so are probably leather. Uniforms in this source are chiefly red, sometimes blue. (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome)
p.31
These figures representing psiloi are taken from an assortment of 10th-century ivory caskets.
The first thing we see is that, despite the military manuals’ statements to the contrary,
helmets appear to have been in widespread use amongst light infantry.
Bows and swords are the arms most commonly depicted on the caskets,
but note that of the top two figures one has a slightly curved weapon and the other a sabre-hilted sword,
both probably one-edged parameria.
A similar selection of skutatoi, the top three from 10th-century caskets and the other two from later manuscripts.
The 10th-century figures all wear basically the same equipment,
i.e. a hip-length klibanion with or without sleeves and a helmet with or without aventail.
Shields are all rather small for skutai and appear to be circular.
The last figure comes from the Madrid Scylitzes, his armour really differing little from that of the 10th century.
The shield of the last figure, who dates from c. 1110, is the indigenous Byzantine ‘three-cornered’, or kite, shield;
he appears to wear a padded corselet of some kind.
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