Quote Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios View Post
About piercing weapons; one would always wear some additional layer of clothing/armour underneath the chain mail, or the LS if only for simple reasons of comfort. I guess it hurts: 10000+ metal rings scraping off your skin; or getting your skin stuck between the two of the segements in LS...
I have heard a number of vague references to a padded garment that was worn over the tunic and underneath the armor. The term subarmalis comes to mind. I've heard it used as a pretty generic term for any article of clothing worn underneath armor. Quick google came up with this: http://www.larp.com/legioxx/subarm.html
Not sure how accurate it is but all the reenactment sites seems to agree that little is known about this garment because it was made of perishable textiles and hence hasn't survived.

As for Re-enactors choosing to stick with LS instead of other forms well; that can be explained by a number of reasons:

1) LS doesn't weigh as much as chain mail;
2) LS can be recreated/faked quite easily; chain mail can't (remember: 10000+ rings...).
3) LS is cheaper (see #2); valid even way back when
4) For some strange reason (a-historical Romans) the public associates the combination "Romans + history" with LS. It's not accurate, given the Romans never took to it the way the Greeks took to the Lineothorax for instance; but yeah ... Also; not like re-enactors give an accurate representation of the armies back then if you interpret the amount of re-enactors posing as soldier type X as how many of them were actually around; I mean: ever seen as many re-enactors choosing to pose as Pantodapoi-type soldiers?
Makes sense. That strange reason, btw, is most likely that ever-corrupting influence on modern culture--Hollywood.

Have any EB members or players ever been to a reenactment?