Quote Originally Posted by Watchman View Post
Nevermind now the man's assorted body parts, clothes, armour etc. getting in the way. Most artists probably wouldn't have bothered, certainly, but that's not very useful one way or another. You don't happen to know of any archeology that might shed light on the subject ?
With some sources the artist clearly is knowledgeable about what he is representing and we have all reason to think that he was not omitting any details. I don't know of any studies that have been published on this matter, so a survey of the depictions of Hellenistic cavalrymen in art would be necessary.

A good area of study is northwestern Asia Minor, because we have so many funerary stelae of cavalrymen from this region. The one depiction that I know of that shows a Galatian cavalryman (on a Bithynian tombstone from the 2nd c. BC) shows some kind of round saddlecloth or rudimentary saddle without any horns, while three contemporary stelae of Bithynian cavalrymen (who were entirely hellenized by the late 3rd c. BC), one of which is very detailed, show simple saddlecloths and nothing more. From a wider chronological and geographical range, we have, for instance, the depiction of a Hellenistic battle scene on a painted cup from Begram, probably deriving from a 2nd c. BC Ptolemaic source, and a 3rd c. BC funerary stele from Alexandria, both of which which are very detailed but only show saddlecloths in use.