While this probably was already discussed in the past, i ran into some discussion on this topic recently. Overall agreement was that Mail/Hamata was relatively costly piece of armor, therefore not all men could afford it. especially in times of late Roman Republic, where census was lowered and even men with minimal wealth were accepted as recruits into legions, while Senate payed for their equipment.

This is particularly interesting, as high cost would most likely make this armor less likely to be procured to all men, and while practice was that soldiers actually payed for armor provided, still, freshly recruited men would have quite a problem to pay for it.

So, my question is, what would be the alternative for them? I think leather is out of question, considering its relative weakness against thrusting weapons like spears and swords. this leaves me with some sort of layered linen tunics/vests to be more likely alternative.

Anyway so far, when talking about Hamata, everybody was mentioning it as a complete shirt, yet is there a possibility, Mail could be used as a partial reinforcement for those linen vests? Something like front and back layers attached by straps, instead of full shirts? wouldn't that be a bit less costly, while providing improved protection of most critical areas? After all, early legionaries used a lot of heart protectors, which dint even covered entire chest..

Is there any good publication on this topic? i have a few already, but i find it quite hard to believe authors like D'Amato, who considers every muscled shaped armor to be leather, ignoring the poor resistance of such armor to the most common weapons used..

IMO segmentata was specifically developed as munitions armour because alternatives such as mail, scale, and musculata were too expensive. D'Amato doesn't have a clue what he is talking about regarding leather armour.

It seems pretty clear to me that a lot of legionaries simply did not have any body armor. There are several figurines from that general era, as well as frescoes and mosaics, that show soldiers in just tunics and helmets. There is also the account from the siege of Dyrrhachium, where Caesar's men have to make coats out of hides and padding to protect themselves from Pompey's archers--they wouldn't have to do that if they'd had mail.

I'd have to have another look through D'Amato's book to be sure, but there just aren't many depictions from that era that are likely to be quilted fabric (or something else). I really don't recall anything that looks like bits and pieces of mail or plate stuck onto something else. There certainly aren't any descriptions of such things, either.

In all fairness, I did just run across a reference yesterday that mentioned one of the guys from the Year of Four Emperors (Galba? Otho?), 69 AD, putting on a linen corslet. On the one hand, that shows that such things apparently did survive much later than we tend to think, but on the other hand, this was a Senator! So it's a high-end cuirass, not something stop-gap or cobbled together.

At some point, I really must try to dig a little deeper through the murk to see what was going on in the 4th to 2nd centuries BC. At the moment, the impression I get is that the introduction of mail made a lot of the older leather and linen armor go away. It simply had too many advantages. And IF it was still too expensive for many troops, so what? It was already common for the grunts to go unarmored, so no big deal. Even putting a helmet on every man put you ahead of any Celtic force, for example.

It's a good question, though!

Matthew

Ah, well, I'm taking an Ancient Roman History course this year at college, so I do have some access to source literature. :)

According to Polybius, the youngest of the legion, the Velites, only have a "plain helmet" as well as a sword, spear, and a smaller round shield. The Hastati, however, were the ones who apparently had some manner of (bronze?) breastplate during the Late Republican Era:

"Besides this armament the private soldiers also wear a brass breast-plate a span square, which is placed in the front of the heart, and called a heart-protector (pectorale)." (Polybius, Histories 6.23)

Regarding the maille, yeah - even Polybius says it was flipping expensive:

"...but those who are rated at a property qualification of above 10,000 drachmae wear instead a coat of chain-mail (lorica)." (Polybius, Histories 6.23)

Well, the basics of the "Marian Reforms" is that Marius dropped the requirement that a citizen be a landowner to serve in the legions. The actuality of how they got their kit was probably a messy mix of increased pay, state supply, gear supplied by the general himself, and soldiers buying their own kit with their higher pay. And we know this was not a sweeping "reform" that happened all at once--there was a lot of resistance to it and some armies were still raised the traditional way, with the land-owning requirement. And it has long been assumed that mail became "standard" under Marius, but I think we all agree that that may be a shaky assumption.

On the other hand, we do know that there was a dramatic drop in the quality of helmets from that era. Previous ones are very nice and finely finished, but then they get plain, sloppy, and cranked-out, with features like cheekpiece rivets held by only one rivet instead of up to 4. SO, combined with the Republic turning into an empire and absorbing areas like northern Italy, it's entirely possible that cheaper "crappy" mail was also cranked out. But I'd be very surprised if there were enough datable finds of mail from that era to be able to trace a trend like that. Heck, there isn't even much decent artwork! But bronze helmets are easily preserved, identified, and stylistically dated, whereas mail tends to become a brown, stiff stain that is easily turned into a turnip patch.

It should be emphasized that *many* Republican legionaries had little or no armor. As Elliot points out, velites had only helmets, and velites were legionaries. And of the "heavies", only the wealthier men had mail, while most of the rest had only the little pectoral plate. So going to war with little or no armor was the "default"--heavy armor was the exception. We should avoid seeing unarmored soldiers from the late Republic or early Empire as some sort of abnormalities.

That shift in viewpoint also helps us avoid angst over ancient armor that to us might seem like it is too thin or not covering enough, basically not being all that *we* want it to be. Since unarmored was the norm, any armor was an advantage.

Matthew

i think early Republican Legions were actually a bit heavier armored than later.. Census was much higher early, so only richer citizens were called to arms, and those could afford best protection they could buy. But then census was lowered, more Proletarii class citizens got into army, who couldn't afford armor by themselves.

Another good hint is, that Early Republic fielded 2 and later 4 legions, yet during Second Punnic war they had to field 30 legions.. It is quite probable that those first 4 legions were formed of richer citizens, but when munstering replacements, amount of wealthy citizens would steadily decrease, as would amount of heavy armor within units... plus, due to dissasters at Trasimene or Cannae meant Rome lost huge amount of equipment that couldnt be simply replaced..

I didn't realize so many Roman soldiers fighting as heavy infantry went without armor. Later writers like Cassius Dio seem to have considered armor the default, and Vegetius of course insisted on the importance of armor.

That underscores the contrast what present-day scholarship understands about the Roman military and what sixteenth-century writers thought. Machiavelli and others following him described Roman heavy infantry as equipped with a helmet that went down to the shoulders, a cuirass that reached to the knee, arm defense, and leg defenses. Rather few Roman soldiers ever wore so much armor, and apparently many wore little or no armor.

i was basing my post a bit on modern situation i read recently - ongoing war on Ukraine, government doesn't have enough of ballistic vests for all men, so those conscripted either buy their own by themselves - read a interview with parents of such soldier, where they mentioned they sold a car so their son could get proper protection so he would have chance to return home, while those who dont have enough money, buy improvised protection in form of steel sheets inserts and similar...

So, if a citizen, father or son was called to arms (which was considered to be a prestige), i think it is fair to assume their family would do whatever they could to give them adequate protection so they could stand a chance and return home.. armor was often inherited from father to son, so we cannot say Hastati just because they are youngest men are automatically wearing worse armor..

And regarding selection, Peter Connoly in his book mentioned the process legions were assembled each campaign season. for every legion, tribune Militi were present to select men from the pool. First pick was for 1st legion, then 2nd,3rd and 4th. next turn 4th started first etc.. this continued untill all men were assigned to one of those legions, and they were informed where legions will be stationed.

Once men got to their legion, they were again divided based on wealth and age. First 1200 men of lowest class was assigned to Velites/Leves, while remaining men got to heavy infantry. 1200 youngest to Hastati, 1200 older men to Principes and about 600 oldest men to Triarii. It is quite possible they were not divided by military experience but by their actual age. yet, due to this division, amount of wealthy and poor would be probably evenly distributed amongst all heavy infantry types.

Polybius said that those who had wealth worth of 10000 denarii, used mail. yet he didnt mentioned how many of those men were actually in the legion..

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This is how Roman Republican armour looks like, being worn by the two soldiers at the back.
They differ a lot from the ones worn by legionaries during the Imperial era.

i'm a bit sceptical about circular one.. that piece of armor was found to be used by Etruscans since 8century BC, i would say they would use a bit more modern versions like tripple disc pectoral or muscled version which are a bit more common to be found in Italy.. For example there are 30 pieces of muscled front and back plates in museums around Italy, which makes it the most commonly found armor from 3rd century BC.

That circular pectoral was found at Numantia along with other Roman items.

http://s129.photobucket.com/user/mcbishop/med...1.png.html

Round ones are also shown in artwork from that general era. Though I certainly agree that the muscled and triple-disc styles are VERY cool!

Matthew

is that scale right? 10cm diameter, is quite small. Weren't Pectorals at least 20-30cm wide?


just recently read and article The Homogenisation of Military Equipment Under the Roman Republic by Michael T. Burns, and he only mentioned muscled and tripple disc pectorales. no mention of circular ones.

Quote:

The breast-plates described by Polybius correspond to the dimensions and details of the rectangular anatomical cuirasses which have been found mainly in the coastal regions of Campania, Lucania and Apulia (fig. 6).52 This type of armour first appears in the middle of the fourth century, and is derived from the triple-disc type cuirass, which was developed in the central Apennine region (fig. 7). The triple-disc cuirass is named for the three discs, two upper and one lower, which form a triangular-shaped pectoral. The earliest examples have been recovered from the necropolis at Alfedena in the Abruzzo and are dated to the second half of the fifth century.53 Both the triple-disc and rectangular cuirasses are harnesses, consisting of breast- and back-plate pectorals, held together by shoulder- and side-plates. At present, I have been able to locate a total of 38 triple-disc cuirasses in museums and private collections, 23 of which are provenanced (map 5). Only two of these cuirasses have been found outside southern Italy, at Vulci and Carthage, and all come from burials when the context is known. Although no actual examples have been found in Campania, the triple-disc cuirass is the most frequently depicted type of armour on red-figure vases, which points to its use in this region.

Can anyone provide a link or post images of the muscled pectoral? I'm familiar with some of the triple disk deals, but I'm not sure what the muscled version would look like...

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This one is from an old Hermann Historica catalogue, they describe it as: "A short bronze Samnite muscle breastplate with contoured anatomical details. Lining holes along the perimeter. Remnants of rings in the shoulder area of the chest. Height 30 cm. Weight 737g."

http://www.hermann-historica-archiv.de/index_gb.html Auction 54 - Axel Guttmann Collection

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