Roman Auxiliaries' Equipment

[Patrick Waterson]

Roman armourers would use a travelling forge for 'in the field' repairs.

The essential point seems to be that iron and steel were not particularly scarce at the time so there would be no particular reason to attempt to forge suits of armour into ploughshares or whatever.

[Jim Webster]

Roman armourers would use a travelling forge for 'in the field' repairs.

The essential point seems to be that iron and steel were not particularly scarce at the time so there would be no particular reason to attempt to forge suits of armour into ploughshares or whatever.

a travelling forge and a static forge are two different things

Iron and steel might be plentiful, but you've still got to pay for them. If you've already got something decent and spare you use that. The recycling of metal was common place in the ancient world. Hence Romans burying however many tons of nails when they abandoned a fort. It wasn't that they feared the Picts were going to undercut the North Briton carpentry industry

[Patrick Waterson]

Iron and steel might be plentiful, but you've still got to pay for them. If you've already got something decent and spare you use that. The recycling of metal was common place in the ancient world. Hence Romans burying however many tons of nails when they abandoned a fort. It wasn't that they feared the Picts were going to undercut the North Briton carpentry industry

That said, in our present age of recycling there are people who collect cars and even tanks ... I think we can allow our poor Batavian his trophy suit of Roman armour.

[Jim Webster]

Iron and steel might be plentiful, but you've still got to pay for them. If you've already got something decent and spare you use that. The recycling of metal was common place in the ancient world. Hence Romans burying however many tons of nails when they abandoned a fort. It wasn't that they feared the Picts were going to undercut the North Briton carpentry industry

That said, in our present age of recycling there are people who collect cars and even tanks ... I think we can allow our poor Batavian his trophy suit of Roman armour.

you cannot fit a 1st century provincial into a 21st century mindset , you might as well have him reading a daily newspaper or demanding a vote

[Patrick Waterson]

you cannot fit a 1st century provincial into a 21st century mindset , you might as well have him reading a daily newspaper or demanding a vote

You do not have to: hanging on to armour is not just a 21st century habit.  If one goes back in history, one confronts the shocking fact that some people even acquired armour that was not theirs!

[Jim Webster]

you cannot fit a 1st century provincial into a 21st century mindset , you might as well have him reading a daily newspaper or demanding a vote

You do not have to: hanging on to armour is not just a 21st century habit.  If one goes back in history, one confronts the shocking fact that some people even acquired armour that was not theirs!

yes, for resale, for use or 'for breaking for spares'
We have a surprising lack of evidence of ordinary infantrymen creating exhibition spaces to display their stolen armour

[Patrick Waterson]

Or a considerable body of evidence which we have misinterpreted.

[Jim Webster]

Or a considerable body of evidence which we have misinterpreted.

I'm pretty sure I don't remember any ancient author talking about seeing stands of captured arms and armour as souvenirs in the houses of ordinary soldiers

[Dangun]

And because if most of the other dozens or hundreds of segmentata finds can be associated with legionaries, the "simplest explanation" of the corpus of finds as a whole may be that they all were, rather than the more complicated situation where both types of infantry might use the armour.

Not sure I agree.

Shouldn't we prefer the simplest explanation that explains all of the evidence, not an even simpler explanation that is contradicted by some of the evidence?

If the posited theory is: "only legionaries used segmented armour," the simplest interpretation of multiple examples of contradictory evidence is that the theory is incorrect. It might still be close to true - like "some auxiliaries used segmented armour" or "prior to year XX only legionaries used segmented armour."

I appreciate everyone's input. I'd never really looked at this before and its interestingly less clear than I imagined.

A slightly different question. Some auxiliary units have long histories. So after having been moved around the empire and having had their original recruits replaced by generations of new recruits over centuries what did the unit look like - Roman "factory"-standard equipped or retain its non-citizen equipment?

[Patrick Waterson]

If the posited theory is: "only legionaries used segmented armour," the simplest interpretation of multiple examples of contradictory evidence is that the theory is incorrect. It might still be close to true - like "some auxiliaries used segmented armour" or "prior to year XX only legionaries used segmented armour."

I think the real question is whether we have 'contradictory evidence'.  With 30 or so Corbridge lorica segmentata turning up in Batavia, and about 5 Kalkriese types, we have the right kind of 'cross-section' for trophies, a few from adventurous types who joined in the annihilation of Varus' legions and the bulk comprising take-home trophies from men who fought under Civilis in AD 69.

It might be helpful to have a more complete picture about all armour types found in Batavian territory so we can judge just how often 'ordinary' armour was found in similar circumstances, which might help is to judge whether it customarily found a resting-place with the owner or returned to circulation.

Attempting to suggest that lorica segemetata was used by Batavians means we need an explanation why this particular armour type, which seems uniquely unsuited for swimming, was used by a people whose unique or at least most noteworthy feature was the ability to swim rivers in full armour.

[Erpingham]

If the posited theory is: "only legionaries used segmented armour," the simplest interpretation of multiple examples of contradictory evidence is that the theory is incorrect. It might still be close to true - like "some auxiliaries used segmented armour" or "prior to year XX only legionaries used segmented armour."

I think the real question is whether we have 'contradictory evidence'.  With 30 or so Corbridge lorica segmentata turning up in Batavia, and about 5 Kalkriese types, we have the right kind of 'cross-section' for trophies, a few from adventurous types who joined in the annihilation of Varus' legions and the bulk comprising take-home trophies from men who fought under Civilis in AD 69.

Don't you need to see what distribution looks like in other areas?  If it was similar, you might postulate that this is normal for equipment loss/disposal in the Roman army (which seems simpler than all lorica segmenta survivals are trophies).

[Patrick Waterson]

Don't you need to see what distribution looks like in other areas?  If it was similar, you might postulate that this is normal for equipment loss/disposal in the Roman army (which seems simpler than all lorica segmenta survivals are trophies).

Indeed: we can then ascertain whether the excitement was because lorica segmentata is not found in any presumed or known auxiliaries' homes elsewhere or whether it is occasionally found elsewhere but this is the first time it has surfaced among Batavians.

There is a vaguely interesting discussion here which suggests another reason for lorica segmentata turning up in odd places: see posts 10 and 12 in the thread.  In essence, it tended to break and was hard to fix.  Not sure this explains our Batavian examples, which appear in the right types in the right numbers to be trophies, but it may explain why it was confined either predominantly or exclusively to legionaries, whose smithing and armouring support would have been much more extensive and comprehensive than that of auxiliary units.  Hence auxilia would tend to be issued with more easily maintainable armour types.

Post no.14 in the thread suggests why lorica segmentata was considered desirable:

"Chain mail tends to put a lot of strain on the shoulders, and although a belt can reduce the pull from the sections below, the upper part is still almost entirely hanging from the shoulders and the lower section (which can vary considerably in length) will still exert some pull, which can be quite a bit at times as you move. That "pull" was comparatively minor in the Segmentata, where the semi-rigid upper lames effectively rested against the chest to some degree, spreading out the contact area and requiring less support from above.

When struck with a blunt object (a rattan SCA sword), a suit of chain mail distributed the impact vertically to a moderate degree (chain mail has a "grain", and flexes more in one direction than the other), but you could tell exactly where you were hit, and still feel it to a moderate degree through the underlying padded gambeson. Segmented armor transferred most of the shock from the lame which was struck to the lames that it partially overlapped, so I wasn't entirely sure where it hit, just some pressure in a general area. The gambeson was far thinner than the one I wore with the chain. Whack! "Does that hurt?" "No, I couldn't feel it." I was quite surprised at the result."

This suggests that lorica segementata was a) a more desirable form of protection but b) prone to breakage and difficult to fix and hence c) issued to legionaries because the 4,800-man legion had a much better repair and general smithing establishment than the c.600-strong auxiliary cohort; it could cope with repairs to this idiosyncratic armour type while the more modest support of an auxilia unit could not.