The Syracuse catacomb soldier: Mattiari Iuniores?

[Duncan Head]

A reference in the Osprey Strasbourg AD 357 book led me to this 2017 article by Marko Jelusić, identifying Flavius Maximianus, from the well-known funerary painting in the Syracuse catacomb, as a member of a numerus of Mattiarii Iuniores, on the basis of his fragmentary inscription (member of a N(umerus) MA....) and the resemblance of his shield-emblem to that of the Matiarii Iuniores in the Notitia. The resemblance had already been pointed out by Luke Ueda-Sarson in 2015, which Jelusić  acknowledges; but Jelusić argues for a much closer match between the Syracuse and Notitia paintings than Luke saw.

The biggest difference is that the Syracuse catacomb has the main field of the device as white, but all versions of the Notitia have it in yellow; the device to the sides of the boss in the catacomb painting, which Luke couldn't identify but Jelusić sees as the same quadrupeds (lions? wolves?) of the Notitia but turned through a different angle, are however yellow in the catacomb. It's not hard to see how a white field with yellow beasts might have become the yellow field with beasts in outline of the Notitia through less-than-perfect copying.

Very interesting especially since we have external corroborating evidence for so few of the Notitia shield devices.

[aligern]

Could some of the differences in the position and style of shield device be due to the artist having no standard source? That is he is asked to provide a picture of someone from Mattiarii Iuniores and is simply told yellow with a gold rim and boss, two wolves either side of the boss, blue ring around it with a white pillar . a crescent moon at the top
Did the Romans have an heraldic language that coukd describe wolves as couchant as against rampant? Did any state or army body set and hold standard patterns? Is it possible that in a unit such as the Mattiarii one sub unit might have the wolves set differently from others? It woukd be a bit like eighteenth century europe where the  colonel decided on lace and other decorations, atvwhatnlevel in a Roman unit could such a decision be taken?

Roy

[Duncan Head]

I would have thought it more likely that the catacomb artist had the deceased's actual shield in front of him, but perhaps the Notitia artist, with all those hundreds of shields to depict, was the one working from sketchy descriptions.

[Erpingham]

Do we know who decided the shield patterns?  Did the unit decide a pattern than send a reference copy to HQ for the file, which could be compiled into the Notitia, or did someone at HQ sit and decide the shields then send a pattern to the unit saying copy this?

[Duncan Head]

Do we know who decided the shield patterns?

Nope.