Augustinian Reforms

[Comrade Alexeo]

If the camp was attacked in the night it would be a lot of dead legionaries. Mail takes 30 seconds to put on, or 1/4 the time.

If the camp was attacked in the night, then the Roman soldiers would have plenty of time to put on their armor - given that the camps, even in the field, were well fortified and there was ALWAYS a night watch, and usually cavalry patrols as well.

Good mail should be comfortable, it distrubutes the weight better and if it fits well it should provide more freedom of movement. its certainly much quieter and doesn't scare dogs. Actually the Legionary was expected to be quite versatile, there is evidence that there may have been legionary archers and slingers among the ranks.

Segmentata is hardly loud, so your sound argument has no real bearing. Dogs were not common in Roman warfare and in any case any dog that was afraid of the sound of friendly armor was not a suitable war dog.

Legionary archers and slingers were invariably auxiliaries or in auxiliary units, and if they wore armor, they usually wore chain mail, which is satisfactory for protection against ranged enemies. Legionaries proper possessed very large shields which were sufficient protection against enemy projectiles, and so allowed them to wear segmentata, which was better for close-quarters battle.

Good, well cared for mail will last 100 years before it wears out. Lorica Segmentata won't last 20 years without a lot of work. Mail is also less likely to be damaged in combat. Repair would require the removal of copper rivits and in the case of type B and C it would also require the bending and anealing of new copper hooks WHICH BREAK WITHOU WARNING.

I would like to know where you got those numbers. In any case, broken mail is certainly more difficult to fix than segmentata because 1) the rings must fix exactly or else the suit will be deformed and 2) riveting mail is very time-consuming and tedious process. Believe me, I've made it - its hard on your hands. Segmentata looks more complicated but is structurally much simpler. Also, they were brass or bronze, not copper - and the fact that helmets were commonly made of brass or bronze even once iron was figured out testifies that clearly there was faith in those metals.

From a logistics position mail is about 20 times better, from a protection point of view they score the same, for different reasons.

Lugging around zillions of tiny little iron rings for mail... or simply some larger segmentata brass fittings? In a worst-case scenario, having to melt down an enemy's helmet to replace the segmentata fittings also seems easier than having to make a bunch of iron chains. I've already mentioned that segmentata is easier and cheaper to make (meaning you'd be more likely to have spares), and in any case, Roman logistics were generally so far ahead of everyone else's that it would hardly matter what you had to schlep...

A clear advantage mail has over segmentata is that mail, by its structural nature, is less prone to rusting because of the rubbing action of the rings. Then again, any competent legionary would be mindful of his equipment.

At the end of the day it comes down to this. No Centurian, Standard Bearer or Officer wears Lorica Segmentata, EVER. If it was really that good they would. The only real advantages are blunt trauma protection and weight. There is some evidence that the Romans may have worn a form of arming garment below mail, which partially negates the blunt trauma issue, and increases comfort. Wearing such a garment under Segmentata would be more difficult as it would be more likely to wear the leather. The armour was also only in use for around 150 years, despite its relative ease of contruction. Added to this it offers no leg or groin protection.

Well of course they didn't like to wear it - they're officers, not lowly infantry! They needed to be easily identifiable in a battle, which was why they wore crests or animal skins, had different shields, and - yep, might wear different armor. Again, like I've said before, mail is more expensive and more difficult to make than segmentata, and arguably more aesthetically pleasing, so it would be more prestigious to wear it. The same applies to signifers or cornicens wearing lorica squamata (plate armor), which militarily was not as satisfactory as either mail or segmentata, but was certainly very attractive and flashy - not to mention more complicated and expensive. Consider the muscle cuirass as well. Naturally inflexible and quite uncomfortable on a horse, it was worn because it looks distinctive and heroic. If we are to believe Vegetius, centurion armor and helmets were often silvered - a useless military gesture, but powerful social one.

The garment you are thinking of is the subarmalis, which is in various forms worn under all armors; one of its main purposes is to simply stop the armor from dirtying up your tunic. It could be made of most anything - linen, leather, wool - and would no more wear away the leather linings of a lorica segmentata than your tunic would, and probably less so because the segmentata is rather sturdy around your chest. Subarmali for segmentata also needed less padding than those for hamata or squamata.

You are correct that for the lower body hamata and squamata offer more protection, but they weren't as long as you seem to suspect - just below your groin at most, typically. This could actually be a bad thing - movement might be a bit more restricted, it was quite possible for it to be slapping you in your testicles if you ran (uncomfortable, to say the least?), and it would probably just be yet more strain on the soldier's legs. In any case, whatever armor you wore Roman soldiers did not generally wear leg or groin armor, mainly because your shield was there already, but also because against Rome's enemies that wasn't really a big issue; a barbarian was much more likely to swing at your head than your calves, so you might as well save those few extra pounds and save some energy. This is not to say that legionaries couldn't wear greaves if they desired them and bought them of their own volition, and centurions, of course, wore greaves - but, again, more as a badge of rank.






Please do not take my rebuttals as attacking you, but attacking your opinions, which, while bringing up several interesting points, simply do not seem to face up to the facts.