Originally Posted by mAIOR
It seems that mail was always dominant. The segmentata appears for about 200 to 250 years in which mail was still the main armour of the troops. Trajan's column was built to be visible from greater distances so the main reason for legionaries in segmentata is probably just to distinguish them from the auxilia.
Take a look at contemporary monuments like the Adamklissi metopes showing Traian's soldiers on campaign in Dacia (and probably built by the troops themselves), it shows nearly all legionaries in mail and it is much more to be trusted imho as it depicts all other equipment much better and corresponds with the finds we have.
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