Lorica Segementa?

[Intranetusa]

JUST KIDDING!!!






Anyways, my real question is how does the lorica segementa stack up against chainmail - why did the Romans start using it in mass in the 2nd century then stopped using it altogether.

Cheaper to produce but harder/more expensive to upkeep/maintain iron-band armor? Does it provide better protection than say chainmail, scalemail, or lamellar plate mail?



Idiotic history channel used a modern high quality-steel lorica segementa armor and said it could stop a ballista/scorpion bolt... >.<
People like it so much because it looks so much cooler than plain-o chainmail. Bleh :(

[Spendios]

Can a moderator please lock this thread ?

this subject has been discussed ad nauseam

[Bootsiuv]

I don't see the need to lock this thread, regardless how much it's been discussed before.

If you don't want to read about things like this, don't click the links. It's not difficult.

I just am saying that a serious inquiry such as this should be addressed in a helpful manner, regardless how many times its been discussed in the past.

Now, if someone was trolling or whatev, I would agree, but I think his inquiry was a genuine one, so I see no harm in it.

Just my two cents.

[CirdanDharix]

IMO it must have been very effective, if only because it was on the Trajan Column, and that governments very seldom show their el cheapo ersatz for the real thing on their works of propaganda. So Trajan must have thought the segmentata was the best body armour for his line troops, and given his credentials, I'm willing to believe the guy. That said, if it was a quantum leap ahead of chainmail, it would have stuck around, if only for the elites (although there is evidence that it was issued first to the "true" romans, and then to those who would only get citizenship afetr their military service, so if the legion didn't have enough segmentata to go 'round, the more expendable soldiers got chain). If memory serves, the segmentata was lighter than the chain shirt, so that may have been the main advantage, rather than greater protection (although it follows from that, that if you were willing to sacrifice mobility for added protection, you could make an extra-thick lorica segmentata that weighed as much as the standard lorica hamata, yet afforded greater protection).

EDIT: I don't know why it fell out of favour; but I'm not sure the legions were ever fully equiped with it, so maybe it proved to difficult to supply the troops with segmentata.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Nope, LS is on the collum because only legionaries wore it and therefore it's the best way to differtentiate.

[Tiberius Nero]

[grammar_nazi]It is "segmentata"[/grammar_nazi]

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

el cheapo ersatz

That's a hilarious term you created. I guess you're German?

Btw Trajan's column isn't very good for evidence because the soldiers depicted on it are made by hellenic artists who had never seen any real legionnaires, iirc.

[Zaknafien]

indeed, column artwork is awful for evidenciary purposes.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

[grammar_nazi]It is "segmentata"[/grammar_nazi]

Both are in use, don't be a smartypants.

[TWFanatic]

The Greek Artist's perception of the Roman army was probably all screwed up by the movie Gladiator.

[Watchman]

Trajan's Column... that would be the one with the Sarmatian cataphracts and their horses in skintight scale armour, right ?

[Tiberius Nero]

Both are in use, don't be a smartypants.

No, they are not, "segementa" is gibberish, "segmenta" means "segments", "segmentata" means "segmented", and being a smartypants is my job.

[Maeran]

Trajan's Column... that would be the one with the Sarmatian cataphracts and their horses in skintight scale armour, right ?

Yes, but I can understand that one from an artist who has never seen it.

"So, these are men on horses and both the man and the horse wear armour made like the scales of a fish?"

"That's right"

So he goes and draws a man, on a horse, then he adds scale afterwards. And then he takes that to the sculptor.

But LS instead of LH? You wouldn't do it if you hadn't seen it. How would you begin to describe it?

[Zaknafien]

he had seen it--in the ceremonial armor worn by parade units within the capital at Rome. Ascribing it to the class of soldier depicted in the column as "legionary" was a generalization though to make it easier for the viewer to know what he was looking at.

[CirdanDharix]

Usually, I would agree with the doubts about pictorial evidence. However, in this case we have a piece of very high profile propaganda, which Trajan himself would have paid close attention to. It seems implausible to expect him to allow the artists to portray the legions under anything but their best light. Also, the Praetorian Guards and legionnaires (though not all) wore segmentata, whereas auxiliaries had to make do with hamata. That in itself is quite compelling evidence.

[L.C.Cinna]

besides that the Auxiliaries usually did most of the fighting and the legionaries on the Adamklissi Metopes wear mainly hamata and squamata...