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Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle (Read 4198 times)
Thearos
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Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Apr 19th, 2015 at 9:03am
 
https://www.academia.edu/1902686/Arming_Romans_for_Battle

Quite nice, sober piece on the armament of the Republican and Imperial legionaries
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Bill Skinner
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #1 - Apr 19th, 2015 at 7:42pm
 
Very good article.  Do you think you can get any movie directors to read it?  I have known for a long time that Hollywood was using the rarest forms of armor as the most common.  Look at Russell Crow in his famous movie.
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #2 - Apr 21st, 2015 at 4:41am
 
In fact, I preferred movies which showed legionaries like Trajan's Column-- at least they looked kinda right (even Asterix gets details right, even if 100 years too late, i.e. the armour). In Gladiator, everything looks kinda wrong (helmets, etc), though I suppose the strips on "Maximus" 's armour is to show that he's a tough ranker-like figure.
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #3 - Apr 22nd, 2015 at 2:30pm
 
I studied the romans with my wife a couple years ago (every year we pick a different subject). In that reading I came across conflicting statements about the spears in various books.

Some say the metal head was designed to bend on impact. Others say that one of the pins attaching the head to the shaft was wood and designed to break on impact. Others say that the long head was simply to better punch through a shield and hopefully the flesh behind it and the bending/breaking argument is nonsense. That this author claims one side of the argument as fact so simply makes me view him with suspicion.
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"Facts stand wholly outside our gates; they are what they are, and no more;they know nothing about themselves and they pass no judgement upon themselves. What is it, then, that pronounces the judgement? Our own guide and ruler, Reason."
 
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #4 - Apr 22nd, 2015 at 4:25pm
 
Interesting. THis is about the pilum, right ? One thing I like about the Campbell piece is that he gives the sources and the archaeology.

So Polybios says the head is meant to bend. Writing ca. 160-130 BCE, and about the period around 216 BCE. [difficult to reproduce experimentally, and difficult to reconcile with people using pilum to stab-- in the first BC]. He's well informed, a military man, hostage in Rome, well connected with the Roman leaders, used by the Romans as military adviser and saw action with Romans. Very technically accurate (the kestrosphendone: that's his description). But got one detail wrong (thinks Celtic swords are soft, probably because he saw examples of such sword twisted in votive or funerary contexts).

Plutarch writing about Marius, ca. 100 BCE [writes in ca. 100 CE but uses earlier sources], says that the general Marius came up with the idea of replacing one of the pins with wood. This would work. BUT archaeological examples from the first C1st BC don't seem to have this arrangement. So Campbell thinks the famous "wooden pin" was a short-lived arrangement.

My own view, drawing on Campbell and a few other things--

1. ca. 200-150 BCE: long pilum point is meant to bend

2. ca. 100 BCE: same effect achieved by wooden pin, innovation of Marius (who seems to have had a lot of bright ideas in military matters), specifically to fight German invasion
3. ca. 50 BCE: people have noticed that in fact, it's better if the long point doesn't bend (notably achieved the effect of pinning several shields together)-- hence two iron pins, reinforcing collars, and accounts of people using pila to stab in hand to hand fight (as happens under Caesar in Gaul).
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #5 - Apr 22nd, 2015 at 9:10pm
 
BTW here's a picture of a "soliferrum", a Spanish all-iron javelin, perhaps used in the same way as the Roman pilum (hi-penetration missile, used to pierce shields)
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #6 - Jun 5th, 2015 at 2:48am
 
I remember reading that because of the high cost of iron, Roman weapons were frequently used for long periods of time like a 100 years. Is this true?
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #7 - Jun 22nd, 2015 at 11:28am
 
Not sure about the high cost of iron (though generally all metals are costly, and iron gets recycled, as suggested by finds in Roman forts). After all, you're dealing with an army which has a special high-penetration missile weapon which is meant to be thrown at the enemy with no guarantee of recycling.

But arms and armour does seem to have been used over a long period of time, and indeed mothballed items may have gotten reissued. The image you get from Trajan's column (e.g. that legionaries all wore "lorica segmentata") is misleading (legionaries also wore chainmail in the C2nd CE).
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #8 - Jul 31st, 2015 at 3:24pm
 
And I'd add, it depends on which Roman army you're talking about. Republican metal equipment may have had a certain cost, considering the fact that by that time the only "national" iron mines where in Tuscany, Italy.
During the empire, they had mines in Spain, Italy, Germany, plus Rome had become the biggest European trading partner for other entities. It's my opinion that to find iron was much cheaper than before (this until the empire lasted, at last).
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #9 - Aug 2nd, 2015 at 2:49pm
 
That's a good point-- a lot of bronze used. There is an exceptionally interesting find from N. Italy-- a tomb of two fighters, who have a combination of clearly late Rep gladii, and weirdly archaic, bronze age helmets (one bronze, one wooden helmet with bronze studs !). Probably Italian auxiliaries.

Ctr., as Mauro says, the ROman empire, when iron helmets and armour (and even stuff like arm protectors of steel) are common.

In contrast, the Spaniards have javelins entirely made of iron, early on.
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #10 - Aug 3rd, 2015 at 5:00pm
 
Well I'm more educated on the Orientalizing era than anything else - having studied the Italic people living in Central Italy approximately when Rome was founded - and until the Greeks first, then the Celts imported their metalware, there are not many evidences about the use of iron in weaponry. Mainly short swords and javelin heads; these often mixed with bronze.
Interesting to see how the iron artefacts of that era were much more elaborated close to where the iron mines were - Etruscan spear heads showing signs of hammering and melting together multiple layers of different iron during the 8th century already. In the meantime the swords on the other side of Italy were only short, curved blades in which the great thickness was ensuring they would not bend after impacts.
But I'm far from home since too long, I should really read again my books!
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Re: Duncan Campbell, Arming Romans for Battle
Reply #11 - Oct 10th, 2015 at 7:23am
 
A hobbyhorse of mine, I'm afraid. Metals were expensive, very expensive. Consider to make iron the following needs to be done:
  • Ore mined, picked over to remove gross contaminants, washed and roasted to remove impurities, this has to be done even with high grade ores;
  • Charcoal to be made for roasting, blooming, working the bloom (wrought), and smithing on the order of 20 - 30 kg for each kg of iron;
  • Blooming furnace to be made (in stages) using good quality clay, tuyeres fitted, bellows fitted and the initial "charge" (iron ore and charcoal) placed during the building;
  • Start the firing, carefully increase the charge and make sure your bellows men are not working too hard or too slow; once you have put in sufficient charge continue the bellows work for at least a day;
  • Go away and let your furnace cool for about 3 days;
  • Smash the furnace open - carefully it will still be very hot - rake over the coals and discover the bloom at the bottom of the furnace, this bloom will weigh about 7 kg and have the consistency of warm toffee;
  • Take the bloom to an anvil and start the "writhing," working the lump to expel most of the slag, reheating it as necessary, and after a day you will end up with 3 to 5 kg of iron that you can sell to a smith

This process results in iron that is, normally, pretty good, neither hot nor cold short.
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