Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers with me, Murray, your weekly fix of ancient warfare related stuff where I rant for 10 minutes trying to answer a question that you've sent in about ancient warfare. You can of course ask us a question via email, via postcard,

via comment on a previous video. You can back us on Patreon, forward slash ancient warfare podcast,

and one of three different levels, even get a copy of the magazine. And you can listen to the big

podcast, the ancient warfare podcast, which comes out once a month, or even the ancient history podcast.

And otherwise, you're stuck with me three or four times a month doing my little 10-minute ancient warfare answers.

So you ask a question about ancient warfare.

I attempt to answer it.

So this one comes from someone called History of War, which is a very appropriate person to be answering, asking a question.

And it came from a blog post about the ancient warfare podcast.

Which type of armour did the legions under Caesar and Augustus use?

I understand that Lorica Segmentata was adopted later, but was it in use during Octavian's era?

Additionally, I've found references to three types of scooter shields,

the curved oval used by late Republican soldiers,

a slightly curved rectangular version,

and the iconic rectangular scutum seen in reliefs of Trajan and Orelius.

Could you clarify which types of shield we used during Augustus's later reign,

as well as the periods of

Germanicus and Vespasian. Oh, all right. So there's a really interesting thing that happens

with Roman armor and shields and terminology around them. So for instance, Lorica Segmentata is not a

traditional Latin term. It's a modern one. And Romans would just use Lorica, and they might use Hamata male, which for a long time was

called chain mail, but is no longer called chalmat.

So Lorica, Hamata, we use for male armour in the Roman legions.

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