Late Roman Armour and Equipment

hello and welcome to Eastern Roman history during the late Roman Empire the equipment of the late Roman army hardly changed in fact the basic equipment of soldiers throughout the ancient and medieval period was very similar until the advent of gunpowder in terms of armor by ad 350 virtually every soldier in the Roman army wore armor most men wore chainmail a more rarely scale armor the most common finds of male are change shirts that covered the shoulders and extended to the waist far less common are perks that extend to the knee and the full length of the arms some surviving examples even have a male wife to protect the head some male armor included tohru's of leather that were attached to the male at the waist and shoulders chain Armour or lorica Hamato was made of iron or copper alloy links each ring passes through the tier brings above below and beside it the ends of the ring were riveted together and assembled in alternate vertical rows of rings the scale armor or lorica schemata also extended to the waist and the shoulders and could also include Tarrou jizz one example from louisia Secunda was even made of bronze scales rather than iron another type of armor was an anatomical kurios that was made of Eva bronze or iron and often had torches which is what most officers wore the scales were mounted on cords of linen or leather each scale had two pairs of holes the top holes were used to attach the scale to the linen or leather the side holes attached to the scales from the previous row making them over the lap bronze breastplates with scale or male features have also been found lamellar Armour which has been found before the 4th century and after the fifth is completely absent from these two centuries this properly reflects the standardization of arms and armor under the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine during the Theodosian era Virgie Geus notes that some soldiers dispensed with their armor and helmets because of the weight this may have been true for some troops but most of the armies still wore armor considering that depictions and descriptions of armor continued to be made for infantry and cavalry in the 6th century and seem almost exactly the same as their late fourth and fifth century counterparts this indicates that vegeta s-- had over emphasized the abandonment of armor and there was no break in its use simply a small reduction for some units the notitia dignity autumn records fabricate producing shields and armor Marcion introduced a law that banned the export of body armor and many depictions of soldiers in the 5th century shown men in armor suggesting that a large scale abandonment of armor after Gration is Buncombe however that is not to say that all roman soldiers and fighters always wore armor as there are many depictions of men in manuscript illustrations monuments mosaics wall paintings plates and wooden carvings that show men both with armor and without dating to the late 4th and 5th century cavalry wore armor similar to the infantry including helmets shields and body armor cataphracts however wore segmented lake plates and Acuras or male armor for the body their helmets had a facemask for extra protection a cataphract has been depicted with shield but it is unknown if this was true for all cataphracts some but not all cataphracts had armored horses horse armor was often made of scale or chain armor but cloth leather and felt barding may have also been used despite no surviving archaeological evidence light cavalry could have worn armor but if there is one unit of which armor was not necessary it would be like cavalry it is always a possibility that their shields would be smaller to as light cavalry were meant for scouting and skirmishing and not for charging into dense formations horses were usually provided by the government but enlisting troopers could bring their own horses could either be levied from the countryside or arathi and imperial horse breeders it was the responsibility of the tribune us stab you ly later changed to calm stab you Lee to supply the government with all of its required horses although Vegeta says that soldiers also abandoned helmets this argument can be scrutinized by the same analysis as body armor and the same evidence indicates that although some units may have favored cloth caps generally helmets were continuously used created and depicted in the late 4th and 5th centuries there were two main types of helmet produced the main being a helm with a neck guard very large cheek guards a protective visor and a bar near the crown of the helmet this type of helmet afforded protection to everything except the eyes nose and front of the face some soldiers are shown wearing male or scale wife's instead presumably with something underneath to soak up the shock the other type of helmet that first appears in the 4th century was a helm made from two separate pieces of metal the large fan running down its middle this helm had a neck guard which was part of the helm plates and cheek guards this helm left the ears and much of the faced exposed this type of helmet is called a ridged helmet the whole helmet has small holes around the edge so that cloth padding could be sewn into it this would make the ridged helmet more comfortable and provide more protection for the wearer a small number of surviving examples have traces of silver on the outside perhaps the helmets were washed and silver too them look grander and prevent rust why one helmet was used over the other is unknown but the regularity of both helmets suggests they were produced in the fabric a infantry occasionally wore Greaves but their fines are uncommon these were made of metal or cloth perhaps one reason for their rarity is that they were mainly worn by officers but this is only a theory troops use large oval-shaped shields they were one to 1.2 meters or 4 feet long and 0.8 to 0.97 meters or nearly free feet in breadth the anonymous buys Antonis suggested that shield should be 1.6 meters long these shields were made of planks of wood glued together going lengthways the edges were protected by a strip of hide nailed into the board a handle was cut out of the shield for the bearers hand to hold and the boss was riveted on top to protect the center and act as a weight he bludgeoned itself depictions such as the Ravenna mosaic of Justinian historical accounts and the notitia dignity autumn give ideas as to how the shields were painted although with the notitia dignity autumn it is likely that a lady a copyist invented some of the shield designs however the designs in the notice of dignity autumn do bear some Authority for Vegeta's tells us that different units had their shields painted in a certain way so that their comrades could recognize them during battle this is backed up by a me honest Marcellinus 16 12.6 where had the allamani recognized a roman commetators because of their shields these large shields were used by both cavalry and infantry the duteous adds that these shields had the owner's name cohort and century written on the back small round shields were also used however the were used almost exclusively by the candidate he bodyguards of the Emperor belts were an extremely important part of a Roman soldiers equipment for two reasons her belt was very useful and it distinguished a soldier from a civilian belt buckles were made of iron or copper alloy and were in three different types type one had a tongue that passed through a hole in the lever another had the lever pass over the tongue and fastened by a side extension the third dispensed with the metal tongue and had the tapered ends of the belt pass through the buckle and attached to the studs either side this was the most common type of belt in the fourth and fifth centuries belts also became broader five to ten centimetres or two to four inches wide broad belts also had narrow straps which were attached at one side of the belt plate wrapped around the inside and buckled to another side some bail plates could be decorated with gold or semi-precious gems like garnets belt straps could be very long so they either dangle from the belt all wrapped around the outside of the belt the end left to hang down the right side of the hip belt fittings called stiffeners were needed to stop the belt folding in on itself one example called the propeller stiffener was about one centimeter wide and four centimetres long this style lasted until the early 5th century after the early 5th century broad belts were replaced by narrow belts in terms of equipment that soldiers carried they had a water bottle blanket twenty days ration they likely carried a pickaxe or some other type of entrenching tool attempt and states to go with it and any additional clothing such as spare boots trousers and so on a soldier's uniform would consist of a woolen or linen tunic trousers a cloak called a clemmy's and most importantly of all boots soldiers also carried the Roman equivalent of dog tags the average late Roman soldier carried 25 to 30 kilograms of weight and total units extended to the knee who were long-sleeved wool and eunuchs from dura Europos were woven into one piece with a neck hole they have a decorative band on the cuff as well as a single double or triple clay verse band which ran over both shoulders down to the middle of the chest the decorative parts were sewn with a reddish thread while the rest of the garment was on dyed the Ravenna Augustinian music shows his generals in undyed tunics the essential shape and design of the tunic remained the same throughout the late Roman period from the third to fifth centuries red tunics have also been depicted such as a fourth century catacomb fresco from Syracuse Sicily this suggests that perhaps other colors were used to dye tunics the Emperor Claudius ii is known to have worn red tunics while still a military tribute z historian augusta Claudius 14 the main difference in clothing was the choice of decoration which could very round also have scenes or geometric designs were sewn into the shoulders or above the hem two on the front and two on the back these were added during the 4th century as extra decoration these decorations were evil woven into the fabric or embroidered on later red tunics had their decorative patterns sewn in black a Foraker Marcus was a special tunic garment for wearing under scale or male armor it was made of wool or linen felt this shirt could have another shirt worn over it to prevent it getting sodden with water and then the armor would be placed on top the Foraker Marcus prevented the armor rubbing against its wearer cloaks were commonly worn by soldiers answer millions from this third century onwards although many people's in the Roman Empire had warm cloaks before them the type of cloak late Romans commonly used was a Sagan the Sagan reached to the knee and fringes along the bottom hem it was fastened at the right shoulder exposing the right side of the body the Justinian mosaic shows his generals wearing ankle length undyed cloaks clearly the Sagan was not the only design of cloak in use by the 6th century trousers were worn by both infantry and cavalry cavalry wore trousers that stretched down to the knee where a footman had trousers that covered the length of the leg depictions of men wearing trousers suggest that trousers were fairly skin tight Germanic troops wore Luso woollen trousers to what the Romans are depicted as having and were probably most common in European provinces in the east long used trousers were worn most Roman soldiers in the late Roman Empire are shown wearing ie pileus trapeese shaped rounded hat this woolen hat was fleecy rather than smooth Vegeta says that Pannonian swore leather hats to get them used to wearing something on their head before they wore a helmet it seems that the hats the GTS refers to are quite different to the ones depicted elsewhere these Pannonian hats were probably similar to the charioteers crash helmets which were more like a skullcap heavier and made of felt peel a were particularly popular during the Tetrarchy since the famous statue of the tetrarch's shows all four of them wearing pillai the hat is also shown in the great hunt mosaic from our marina villa and tombstones perhaps the soldiers most important piece of equipment was his boots Kaluga were abandoned in the late 2nd century and replaced with Eva sandals boots or shoes the crossbow brooch was the most common type of Roman brooch from the third century onwards a good example of one can be seen in the ivory of still echo the tombstone of Julius Ophidian has won two gilded bronze examples have been found in Richboro and lank Hills Cemetery in Breton standards held both an important religious and military purpose they were a good rally point for troops and gave the soldiers and their officers a good idea of where their regiment and their comrades were on the battlefield holliness Marcellinus tells us about when some cavalry rallied at seeing the standard of the emperor julian c 24 118 a standard was the pride of the regiment and so if a standard was lost it was a huge humiliation for both the regiment and the army as a whole this is a military tradition that still exists today and as late as the Victorian era British and other European armies still took their standards into battle much like the Romans the VEX Ilham standard are the square-shaped piece of cloth often with a cairo which was fringed at the bottom edge and hung on a cross bar attached to a long pole a surviving example from Egypt was painted and had a figure of victory attached to it Vegeta's tells us that Aquila or Eagle standards were still used in the late Empire each century of a regiment carried its own standard as well each regiment also carried a Draco standard or dragon standard these have been introduced by the some nations in the second century and were primarily used by the cavalry but they were commonplace in both the infantry and cavalry by the 4th century a hollow dragon was built and a pole was inserted into a hole at the base of the dragon's mouth with its mouth open it may have made a sound or action with the wind Draco standards have been found in the Adobe Adair fort also on the great looter VC sarcophagus the arch of Galerius the arch of Constantine and inside dounia's Apollinaris panegyric - Maggiore n' although one might think of musical instruments in battle as being more in the age of Fife and drum the Romans used instruments just like their later counterparts to help convey commands and battle Vegeta's says that the Roman army used these sounds so that the soldiers knew exactly what they should do either halt advance pursue withdraw and so on three instruments were used by the Romans at Cuba a long straight trumpet a cornu circular type of bugle and abu sina which was a horn often bound with silver and the horn was made from a cow or war rock both the tuba and cornu are depicted on tombstones and the great Ludowici sarcophagus procopius states that each instrument could have two different tunes played by the sixth century however the musicians could only play one two so procopius advised Belisarius that the cavalry trumpet should be used to sound the attack and the infantry horn to sound the recall as the two sounds were quite distinct see procopius walls of Justinian book six chapter 23 part 23 most equipment like uniforms were produced by the state fabric a this also meant that large-scale production and trade of military equipment outside of the fabric a was difficult to compete with if not illegal every frontier province in Europe had a fabric a Scutari ax at our Mauryan these were the most common form fabricate a frontier diocese have to fabricate four armor and equipment production however it seems very likely that fabric a four other arms such as arrows and swords would also produce things like tunics and entrenching tools fabric a were placed on road networks and away from the frontiers to maximize efficiency and keep them secure of course for the sources are used for this video they had not yet found any archaeology that that can be identified as a fabric a as of the 1990s although this may change in the forthcoming years both the GTS and Emperor Morris mentioned fabric a in their military treatises and the notitia dignity autumn gives specific detail of the fabric a the state organization of the fabric a was likely an innovation of the Tetrarchy but like most things from the Tet rocket period these fabric a were likely based on pre-existing centers of large-scale military production there were 20 fabric a in West and 15 in the east cleburn re and cataphract re fabric a had free in the east and half of one in the West this video has been about late Roman armor and equipment if you would like to watch my video about the late Roman arms please find the link in the description below I have been your host annual may not and this has been Eastern Roman history [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Eastern Roman History

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Keywords: late roman armour, late roman army, roman army, eastern roman history army, claudius ii, spartha, chainmail, scalemail, helmet, spear, shield, cloths, tunics, roman cloths, clothes, roman armour, roman equipment, fabricae, notitia dignitatum, late roman weapons

Id: ThzVJwGv3CI

Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 31 2020