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Roman Body Armor. During the expansion of Rome and the acquisition of new territory,
the Roman armies were often met by heavy resistance and bloody conflicts. ...
... enemy's shield and possibly his armor and body as well. The Pilum was based on similar
Greek weapons and was in use throughout the times of the Roman Conquest. ...
... There were three basic styles of armor in Roman times ... The last type of body armor
used in Rome was called segmental armor which was very similar to scale armor ...
... The Roman military was the most advanced of its day. ... shares the same type of advantage
over other nations, as soldiers are dressed in body armor with the best ...
... Miah Thatcher 4B Knights In the fourth century AD the Roman Empire fell and ... The main
body armor worn my early knights was made of mail, consisting of many small ...
Submitted by smoothcriminal on March 13, 2005
Category: History Other
Words: 3101 | Pages: 13
Views: 341
Popularity Rank: 30,761
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During the expansion of Rome and the acquisition of new territory, the Roman armies were often met by heavy resistance and bloody conflicts. The armies needed a type of protection that would safely protect soldiers and would ensure victory for Rome.
That is the reason armour (upper body) in particular was implemented to save soldiers on the battlefield. The armour had to meet certain standards of construction for it to be useful: Of these standards the first was that armour was to be flexible enough to allow the wearer freedom of movement in battle. Secondly, it had to be lightweight it could be worn without wearing down the soldier, while still protecting him against an opponents' weapon: and finally, the armour had to be made at low cost. These three aspects were influential in the evolution of armour design in the Roman army. The main study point of
Roman armour is that it was a trade off between freedom of movement, protection, and cost factor. In the first century A.D. there were about four types of armour in use. The names of the different types were muscle, scale, mail, and segmented mail and the segmented breastplate being the leading type. Studying of these armour types relies upon three main sources of evidence: iconographic; archaeological; and literary source documents.
The evolution of Roman armour was influenced by the needs and circumstances of the Roman Army. Armies of the first century A.D. were finally established within the
Empire and control fell solely under the Emperor. With the increase of soldiers in the
Roman army, which was up to around thirty legions, well built armour was more in need than ever on the frontiers. The army could be divided into two distinct parts the legion and the auxiliary. Only Roman citizens could become a legionnaire, while the auxiliary were made of non citizens from Rome's settled territories. The early view put forward by a historian named Webster was that the equipment used by...
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