clipeus

• Illustration — An Imago clipeata on a sarcophagus at the Villa la Pietra near Florence Pliny the Elder also describes the custom of having a bust of an ancestor painted on a clipeus, and hung in a temple or other public place. From this tradition, round bas-reliefs in a medallion on sarcophagi and in other forms are known as imago clipeata or "clipeus portraits", a term usually restricted to Roman art.

The clipeus was used by Romans during the Roman Kingdom and early republic but was replaced by the legionary scutum, a convex rectangular shield, in the later Roman Republic. However, the scutum disappeared during the Crisis of the Third Century. All troops adopted the auxiliary oval (and sometimes round or hexagonal) shield (parma or clipeus). From examples found at Dura-Europos and Nydam Mose, shields were of vertical plank construction, the planks glued, and faced inside and out with painted leather. The edges of the shield were bound with stitched rawhide, which shrank as it dried, improving structural cohesion. It was also lighter than the edging of copper alloy used in earlier Roman shields. The clipeus virtutis, Latin for "shield of bravery", was awarded to Augustus for his "courage, clemency, justice and piety" by the senate and displayed in the Curia Julia.