Talk:Lorica segmentata
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I made a set of lorica segmentata and find that it collapses like a collapsable cup, with the top ring of plates on the outside and each other ring of plates concentrically inside. I didn't do much research on this armor, but I find it hard to believe that they would take it apart for transport when the correct leather strapping of the metal plates will let the armor be just as compact.
Short version: How do you know they took the armor apart when they wanted to save space? -Tom Cerul
The link to Anima goes somewhere nonsensical.
The authoritative website for the three early forms of the this type of armor (Kalkreise, Corbridge and Newstead) is located here: http://www.loricasegmentata.org/. The website author, M.C. Bishop, has also published a monograph (Lorica Segmentata: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour, Armatura Press, 2004 ) that reviews critical works in the study of all forms of the lorica and also reviews the archeological evidence.
Persons interested in reconstructing their own lorica can visit this site for full-sized patterns: http://www.larp.com/legioxx/lorica.html. Lorica Hamata and Lorica Squamata reconstruction information are available at: http://www.larp.com/legioxx/hamata.html and http://www.larp.com/legioxx/squamata.html respectively.
r.saulpaugh
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[edit] leather lorica?
I've heard, from admittedly unreliable sources, that in many cases, for the sake of cheaper manufacture, relative lightness, and bearability in hot climes, variants of this armor were made with the big plates being of boiled leather rather than metal, and issued in southern Italy, Greece, Africa and the East. Would anybody be able to confirm that, or is this an unverifiable (and probably false) crackpot idea ? --Svartalf 13:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] RE: leather lorica
Leather segmentata is advocated especially by Ars Dimicandi in Italy, who claim the construction work seen on relief sculpture cannot be done with metal segmentata. However, many who have metal segs can prove them completely wrong. Also, there is no archaeological evidence for leather segs at all, whereas many many ferrous examples have been found far widespread locations.
[edit] On the actual Wiki entry:
I also do not know where the idea that segs are more expensive than hamata (chainmail) to make comes from? I believe it is quite the opposite, which can be seen reflected in today's comparative prices, decent hamata usually being at least three times the cost of a decent seg. Hamata is much more time consuming and labour intesive to make, whereas there are re-enacters who can bend and construct, to fit an individual, pre-cut seg plates in no time at all, by hand, at re-enactment events. Perhaps field repairs are easier, but a Roman legionary hardly spent every day in battle, giving ample time to repair any breakages. There are also plenty of repairs visible on actual found segs. unknown user
Well, the thing is that this is the case... now, when chainmail is work intensive to make whereas modern technology helps greatly in shaping the plates for segmentata. In ancient time, the positions were reversed, because, although time and labor intensive to make, hamata could be made by relatively unskilled slave labor, whereas the fabrication of segmentata needed skilful metallurgists and artisans, who were generally free and had to be paid, rather handsomely. --Svartalf 20:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Response to that ;-)
Well, the thing is that all a seg needs is... a pattern, ferrous plate sheets, and basic metalworking tools. Once cut, the plates can be bent to shape over your knee (16 gauge at the the thickest for the chestplates and upper shoulders, 18 or even 20 gauge thickness for the rest). Then you just need to punch holes in the appropriate places, add the brass fittings, and put it together using the leather strapwork and rivets. the most complicated part would be rolling the edges over at the neck and bottom girthplates. I'm even considering doing it, and I haven't done any metalwork for many years. Making a hamata is much more complicated as is any chainmail armour. You cannot just take a whole sheet of pre-prepared chainmail and cobble it together to make a shirt. It's far more complicated than that and takes a very skilled artesan to do it properly. One theory on why the seg was introduced was because of the need to equip a rapidly expanding and expensive army under Augustus, without breaking the bank. Besides, a hamata (or squamata, or plumata)was the preferred choice of centurions who had more funds available, and a higher standard of kit than the common miles, which by itself suggests that hamata was more expensive. unknown poster
You don't have at all the same working conditions as the Romans. a) you may have access to hotter fires b) you have access to prerolled sheet steel, which they did not and c) hou have access to steel that would likely be much more easy to fashion without having it lose on some desirable properties, since our mastery of precision metallurgy is far more advanced then theirs...
Don't assume that things that WE, in our industrial age of highly developed chemistry find something easy, it was so in ancient times... just remember that it took 5 to 7 centuries for Western metallurgists to learn how to make high carbon steel that even remotely resembled that used by the Saracens ... and that even modern metallurgists are still arguing about the actual materials and processes used.--Svartalf 17:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Fact Is...
"Also, it was expensive because making a segmentata required an experienced smith with good facilities, while Lorica Hamata (chain mail) could be made by any slave." Regardless of your opinion, it is only that. The quote above is pure speculation, and has no evidence whatsoever in original sources which are stated as fact in the article. It should be removed from the Wiki entry as it has no foundation whatsoever in evidence at all. Modern reconstruction proves the exact opposite, if anything.
[edit] More information
The re-enactment group Legio VI Victrix quote around 15-20 hours to make a Newstead seg. Another re-enactor gives 40 hours for a fully completed seg. Average of, let's say, 30 hours.
A modelling website, which cites its references so is researched, quotes 180 man hours to make a lorica hamata from 22,000 1/4"" rings. Another source on a forum took 50 man hours using 1/2" rings, which means it would have taken 200 hours with 1/4" rings (twice as many across and vertically). Let's call that 190 hours.
That makes hamata 6.33 times longer to put together than segmentata. That's more than 6 times the personnel to be paid, maintained, whichever, depending on if they were slaves or freemen.
Henry Cleere, in his chapter on Ironmaking in the 1976 book Roman Crafts (edited by Strong & Brown), believes that refined iron was a cheap commodity. Given that both seg plates and stamped rings underwent the same process of flattening, and riveted rings had to undergo a more intricate process in order to give their shape, I am reluctant to say that preparation of the raw materials of a seg was a longer process - the opposite if anything. The number of rivets for a seg is hugely less also. As for how the armourers acquired the raw iron blooms, it would seem they simply bought them in pre-prepared from foundries.
I have to say, I think the comparison between costs of a seg and hamata today stand up. Ergo, hamata is more expensive to make. Even the argument that slave labour could not make segs holds no ground with me. It was common practice to use slaves as accountants, cooks, and in other skilled jobs and labour, and I don't see why segmentata manufacture would be an exception. The origins of the artesans making either is surely irrelevant.
The article is misleading as it states as fact what cannot be actually known, and where actual reconstruction contradicts it completely in the area discussed here.
Addendum: Apparently the next edition of JRMES (Journal of Roman Military Studies) will have a paper on the evidence of foundry manufactured steel plating, both rolled and cast plate, thus further eliminating the need for armourers to hammer their own blooms. It also turns out that the article here was originally contributed to by probably the leading worldwide authority on segmentata, which was then edited and deleted ad hoc. I shall be redressing the article to reflect the latest findings and expert opinion.
- Interesting. I remember reading speculation that the plates of a sementata were produced by water power and that was the reason why they were so very consistent and also why with the fall of the empire, europe reverted to chain-mail - ie. an assumption of lost technolgy. At the time all this was just speculation. Gaius Cornelius 15:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps not. It's a "technique for producing liquid iron which is then worked into flat plate (not the usual cast iron), possibly using rolling mills or trip hammers". I'm sure the paper in JRMES will talk about it in detail.
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