Muscle cuirass

[citation needed] It is commonly depicted in Greek and Roman art, where it is worn by generals, emperors, and deities during periods when soldiers used other types.

Archaeological finds of relatively unadorned cuirasses, as well as their depiction by artists in military scenes, indicate that simpler versions were worn in combat situations.

He recognized that it allowed for the creation of a sculptural unit in which the position of humps and hollows evokes some memory and yet can be made harmonious by variation and emphasis.

There is the beginning of such a system in the torso from Miletos and that of the Kritios youth; but Polykleitos' control of muscle architecture was evidently far more rigorous, and from him derives that standard schematization of the torso known in French as the cuirasse esthétique, a disposition of muscles so formalized that it was in fact used in the design of armor and became for the heroic body like the masks of the antique stage.

The cuirasse esthétique, which so greatly delighted the artists of the Renaissance, is one of the features of antique art that have done most to alienate modern taste....

[12] One of the elements of iconography that identify the Greek Athena and the Roman Minerva, goddesses who embodied the strategic side of warfare, was a breastplate bearing a gorgoneion (see Aegis).

The anatomically realistic navel (Greek omphalos, Latin umbilicus) is placed between the two central figures, slightly below ground level in relation to the feet and centered above the personification of Earth, positioned over the abdomen.

[14] Her reclining position, cornucopia, and the presence of suckling babies is common to other goddesses in Augustan art who represent peace and prosperity.