Roman Heavy Cavalry Techniques - Page 4 - Historum

caldrail · May 17th, 2012, 08:12 AM

An important point is that the later Roman helmets were usually manufactured in state owned factories (which often found themselves staffed by legionaries transferred as immunes if they had the requisite skills). The skill and workmanship of helmet making declines rapidly in the late empire and the former one piece forged bowl designs made way to simpler designs that could be manufactured at minimum cost.

Darth Roach · May 17th, 2012, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by caldrail

An important point is that the later Roman helmets were usually manufactured in state owned factories (which often found themselves staffed by legionaries transferred as immunes if they had the requisite skills). The skill and workmanship of helmet making declines rapidly in the late empire and the former one piece forged bowl designs made way to simpler designs that could be manufactured at minimum cost.

Indeed, before the 4th century armor had generally been purchased on an individual basis, which means that the popular image of uniformly clad Roman legionaries is a myth - it was like for a single unit to have men armored in every type (mail, scale, lamellar, segmented cuirass, greaves, no greaves, various helmets, etc) of armor.

caldrail · May 18th, 2012, 07:53 AM

Not quite. It was entirely possible for bulk orders to be placed and indeed there must have been occaisions when that was necessary. However, I do agree that uniformity is only suggested by monumental art, and those illustrations are not necessarily as accurate as we might like them to be because the artist only needed to suggest soldiers, and to identify them as opposed to any enemy representations.