Roman kit: featuring armour, swords, spears, artillery, rations, deckchairs, and of course shoes.

Let's start with the famous infantry. So we have here six members of the Ermine Street Guard, all looking magnificent in their Lorica Segmentata. I believe this is Corbridge Patton, is that right? Yes, it is. So this is the Corbridge Patton, and I notice that there's a little gap, just there, in a lot of these Corbridge Pattons. ... Are you just showing off, you're just tempting the enemy, go on then, see if you can get that little weak spot if you're hard enough. Well, just manly. OK. It's the way they were reconstructed in 1964 when they first discovered the fragments. They were studied by H. Russell Robinson in the Tower of London. He worked out exactly how they fitted together, and his interpretation was that there was an overlap at the front, and that's why there's a little gap at the top, but they're not an exact fit. The later models were more exact than this. Alright. And I see that you're wearing these so-called groin protectors. Do they actually work, do you think? Because I have to ... When I see these I think to myself, that's not really going to protect the crown jewels terribly well. No. Mainly decorative, but it does keep the tuning very neat at the front, and it doesn't sort of fly up in the air when you run, so it's mainly decorative. To be honest, they're a damn nuisance when you're running as well, they really do catch you. Right. So they could even sort of flop just at the wrong moment and sort of hurt you a bit? Yes, quite easily. Oh dear. OK, so decorative and keeps the tuning looking nice, but as a piece of armour, a bit of a waste of metal. No, it's more bling more than anything, it's more like an ego thing. Right. But you think they would have been worn in battle? Yes, yes, it's a sign of the Legionary. It shows you that you were in the military, the belt and the apron in front. And I see that you're all wearing your gladi on your right-hand side, and the straps go underneath your belts going around, so that when you pull out your sword you don't just get the scabbard following it. Does any of you actually own your own kit, or is this all loaned by the organisation? We have to maintain our own kit. We get issued kit when we join the Guard. Right. And then you have to maintain your own kit as part of being in the Army Street Guard. I see over here, this man here has some interesting armour on his right arm. So have you recently returned from Dacia? No, no, I haven't, no. But you're wearing the Dacian fashion, I believe, that we know from Trajan's Column. This was discovered in Carlisle, or something like it was discovered in Carlisle, which dates from 18 to 120 AD. So that might actually be before the Dacian Campaign? Before the Dacian Campaign, yeah, possibly. Right, so it could be that this was a commoner sort of armour than we realise. Yes, possibly. And they never find them in pairs then? They only ever find just one? Only singles, yeah. Okay, so we can be reasonably sure that they're for use by a man who's got a large shield to protect his other arm. Precisely. Now, that looks pretty wicked. I don't know if it's razor sharp, but it wouldn't have to be very sharp to be pretty dangerous if you actually threw that thing. No, no, no, ... if we did throw this, it would definitely penetrate through flesh and wood of shields as well. So you're wandering around in public carrying a lethal weapon. Yes. So how bendy do you think that shaft would have been? Because I've heard some people say that they were deliberately very soft, and other people say, no, that's nonsense, they were just stiff as iron as they could manage. No, well they did vary, there were different methods. Some of the ones with a riveted tang here, one of the rivets would be replaced by a wooden peg, so that would break. And all of the iron shank would be hardened, so it would be hard iron. But a lot of them would have been heat-treated in the forge so that they were relatively soft. So they were likely to bend after impact, and it would be difficult to return them. And also if they stuck in someone's shield, it would ... disable the shield straight away. Or could it get out. Yes. Now, I know that some people reconstruct soldiers of this period with two peeler, and all of you are carrying one. On the march you would carry two. We have found that in practice that when we give them the first one it's not usually very powerful, because you're holding another one and your shield. But then we find that when we throw the second one it has a lot more power and accuracy. So, I don't know, maybe through living history we have proven that two peeler does work. I see you're all wearing quite hefty neckerchiefs. I imagine that's for comfort as much as anything, because the edge of your lorica must dig in a bit. It does protect you from chafing from the armour. I see you have some beautiful, beautiful cutaway design on the top of your scabbard there. That's certainly a bit of bling. So, why would that be there? Would that be there because ... the individual Roman soldier had paid extra for it to be done? Or do you think he just got really lucky with what you got issued? No, that would be exactly the bling. And basically, if you go to the coinage, you would actually have a bling of your own equipment. ... That's a definite. So that would be what the ... modern soldiers would call, oh, a Gucci scabbard. It certainly is. Okay, you've heard the Cornishman, you must go. Thank you very much. Here we have a chap carrying some lorica segmentata, and he's pointed out some interesting details on the inside of it. And let's start with this interesting bit of leather on the inside. Can you tell me about that? That's to keep it off your shoulders, sir. And we found out because the rivets on the inside were longer in certain places. So then we adapted it so we could put the leather on it, and it makes sense. And when we're marching, the metal isn't on your shoulders anymore. Right, so that makes it substantially more comfortable. It does, yes. Right. And I can see that this bottom bit here, it concertinas very easily. That's quite subtle leather there. Yes, it is, yes. But there's not a huge amount to protect you from this lower rim. Just the very edge has been bent round a bit, so it's a little bit broader. This is made to measure to me. The sections are, the top sections especially, so it would fit on my shoulders and everything. You couldn't sort of go onto a different battlefield and pinch pieces off. And if you had a blacksmith, he could sort of alter it for you, and then you could be able to do that. But the majority of the soldiers would be wearing chain, so one chain would fit everybody. Right, but you think that this design, Lorica, then, really isn't very standardised? You couldn't just have small, medium and large? No. You'd have to have them fit to you personally. Or else you'd end up with sore backs, sore shoulders, and hips would be all ragged. Roman Authentic bread. Flat-ish, in eight pieces. And do you have to wear some leather or padded garment underneath it? Yeah, that's what I'm wearing now. So without that it would just chafe its way through a tunic pretty quickly? Oh yes, it would, yes. Yeah, sometimes it would add more padded tunic than I'm actually wearing at the moment. Standard message tablet. Cheaper than paper, you write on one side in ink, score it down the middle, fold and seal. About as much writing as a postcard. Got something in there. It's actually an apple crumble, Roman apple crumble. Roman apple crumble? Mix the right metals and you get something called mirror bronze. It's an alloy of copper, but it looks like silver. And as you can see here, makes a mirror that really works. Very pretty. May I ask you, sir, about your short sword? Which is, as far as I can tell, very far from short. Standard sidearm. This one is a mains. It was found in Germany. Different to the parallel-sided Pompeii design. This is more of a heavier hitting, longer point, designed for splitting chainmail. Do we know that it's for splitting chainmail or is that speculated? It just worked. We've actually tested it and it does work to that. The Pompeii one. Optio, can I borrow your blade a minute? Parallel-sided. The Pompeii style? Yeah, more of a stubby and this is more for going into squishy bits of people. Right, so you've tested the that Gladius or one like it. One like it. On authentic Roman mail that was properly riveted and so forth. Yes. And with a bit of oomph, you can get it through. Yeah, it takes a bit of welly, but it will go. Because remember, you only ever need that much of a blade to put somebody down. There's none of this like Hollywood waving it around your head. There's a short stab from here, putting as much force forward as you can. You have to lower part of the body there. So do you know how long that sword is? Going by Roman measurements, this one is approximately 20 inches. I know that because the little finger to there, to my thumb, is nine inches. And that's a measurement that was used in the catapults for the three span bolt. That's why it's called the three span there today. So how many people are you cooking for today? Eight of us. All right, so it's like one Roman section. Yes. So each man gets one eighth of that stotchy cake. Yeah, some of this. They've got some cheese ready for them as well. They've got grapes, apples. Oh, you're set up. Oh, yeah, we're all starved here. Centurion, transverse crest. Optio, the chosen man, the man for whom we have opted. Ventral crest. The original of it was worn away completely on this side and that side. And when I wear the scale armour, it doesn't really do much to it. If I wear it with that type of armour, the Lorica segmentata, it just chews through. Then you get sawdust under it. So we can tell through experiments that the original of this was actually worn by somebody who had Lorica segmentata. Roman apple crumble. So here we have a chap in some rather magnificent Lorica squamata. That's Roman scale armour. And you made this yourself, did you? That's right. There's about three and a half thousand brass scales here. And if you look at them, you can see that they are sewn together. They're wired together and then sewn onto a linen base. Right. You have to actually lay them on quite carefully. They don't all overlap the same way. Because if you do that, they tend to stand on end. So it is actually quite a complicated process. It's like tiling a roof. Right. Get them all in place. The other issue you have is you have three and a half thousand scales that you can choose to polish, which I did for the first 10 years. But when I rebuilt it, I chose not to polish. This hasn't been cleaned other than wiping off verdigris for about 17 years now. And it still looks pretty good. 17 years? Indeed. Yes, it's still got a bit of glitter to it. So if someone were to stab upwards against that, is there a danger that the blade would go under it? Certainly. But cavalrymen seem to like this kind of armour. So if I were an infantryman thrusting upwards towards you, wouldn't there be a danger that my spear point goes under your scales? Yeah. That's why I was trying to get you first with mine. Oh, that's your plan. This particular armour isn't very good for up thrust, so you have to protect yourself a bit more. On the other hand, it's nice and windproof, and it does look pretty good. So you do tend to find officers wearing it, but it's not necessarily a rule. Any kind of lorica is absolutely adequate as far as a Roman soldier's concerned. It's just a matter of personal preference, and how deep your pocket is, what you wear. Here we have a magnificently attired centurion. So tell me, what did you have to do to earn these magnificent medals on your corset here? Either bravery in battle or long service, yes. All right. And what does this vine stick mean here? It's a part of my badge of office, but was also used on the men for casual corporal punishment. Oh, casual corporal punishment, did you say? Well, as opposed to a formal punishment. All right, so essentially if you're not in line you give them a thwack. That's right, yes. Okay. And you've got some things that look a little bit like Celtic torques. They are called torques, yes. Right, and what do they signify? They're military awards. All right, so what did you have to do to gain those? Wear them round your neck because that would be a barbarian thing to do. Well, quite right, and we're not barbarians here. I mean, for goodness sake, we're not wearing trousers. No, no. And I see that that looks like undyed horse hair in your crest. It does, yes, yes. And do you think that any of it would ever have been dyed? Or do you think it would just be natural horse colours? We can't be too sure, to be honest. And I see you have very, I'm going to go in for a close-up, very fine mail here. Which is made of butted rings. I would say they're something like, what, 4mm internal, something like that? Yes, that's right. So we know that they had mail that fine, do we? Yes, we do, yes. Some even finer, in fact. And did that mark you out as an officer at all, having very fine mail? Obviously, as an officer you would have more money to spend on your equipment. Right, and I see also that you've got your dagger on your right, and your gladius, your sword, on your left. Yes. But the men have got it the other way round. So how come this? That's because I'm an officer. And every time you see sculptures of centurions, they always have their swords on the left. Right. Do you think it's because they can, and no one can stop them? I don't know whether it's another symbol of denoting the rank of the man, really. Right. Showing he's totally different to the others. Greaves, with what looks like repousse work on them. Yes. And again, they're for centurions and above only, are they? Yes. I don't know whether they're really to protect the legs, but to show I'm an important officer, really. Because they're quite thin bronze, they're brass bronze. So they wouldn't give total protection to the legs. Right. But at the moment you're not carrying a shield, but in battle you would have carried a shield, would you? I would definitely carry a shield in battle, yes. Right. So though you wouldn't have been throwing a pilum, you'd have been using the shield as your main defence. And leading from the front. Right. Okay. And how do you signal to your men? Is it just shouting, or do you have a whistle? No, you wouldn't use a whistle. You'd use Latin orders to give to the men. And if you wanted more volume to your commands, then you would use ... the horn player would give commands with the horn. Right. So directly it's yelling? Yeah, that's right. And of course the vine stick? Yeah, and of course the vine stick. Okay. All right, now artillery. So here we have a magnificent reconstruction of a Scorpionis. And what sort of range does this have then? 380 metres. That's a very precise answer. Yeah, because that's what we've been practising at. Okay. So if I stand 381 metres away from you, am I as safe as houses? No. Oh. We'll just about get you. Oh, okay. Aim up a bit. We're only cranking it up to halfway. Right. So when we're going to go crank it back to here, we're going to go straight through you. My goodness, you'd go 382 if you got it back there. Yeah, and a bit further. Right. So how many of these would a unit have? 60 in a row. 60 per legion? Yes. And you're firing between 5 and 6 minutes. We know there was some based on turrets, on forts and things. Right. Yes, it's small enough. Yeah. And these type as well. Now I see that we have what looks like modern climbing rope, modern nylon climbing rope. For safety reasons. Right. So what would they have used back in the day? The guts, sinews and things. And they're trying to tell us there was ladies' hair as well. And the sap of the trees. Right. So you've got sap, you've got hair, and you've got sinew. Yes. That are somehow mixed into some magic rope. Well, so where is this magic rope? Can I see some? No, you can't. Why not? The thing is we're still in the debate about it, you see, at the moment. So has anyone successfully made any magic rope? I couldn't tell you, to be honest with you. Disengage ratchets. Hook the trigger onto the string. That goes in there. That's locked into place. Engage ratchets. Okay, and that's kept separately, and I suppose doubles as a handy club in emergencies. Pull back the trigger. You put your bolt in here. Yep. Then... Twang! That's a firing mechanism. Okay. Got it. But wait, what's this big key for? Goes in there. Like that. For twisting the coils of rope for torsion. Tighten it up. That's why these are in here, the holes in here, and they go in there. To get the tightening. Right, so that entire top section rotates. And the second, and the bottom underneath as well. And all you do then is tighten it. Get it to the right tension and put the pins in. What happened with this painted one here? Right, it came under tension. The laminate came undone. It snapped. Unfortunately, that spins round. Yep. You have to put, you hear it go. Hits you in the back. Right. So try not to be near any of them when they snap. Yes, that's what happens. Yowch. So this degree of curvature here, and where it stops. You can see that where it stops, the string is pretty much straight now along the back. There's no point in taking it any further forward than that. But if you've tried it with the curvature going the other way, and that was a bit rubbish. Rubbish, completely rubbish. So if I were to make some magic rope, how much magic rope would I need? About 100 yards on both sides. So I need 200 yards. Roughly. Right, yeah, I can see that might take me all afternoon. You have to get a long road, and you're walking back and forth. Going back and up, and back and up. But keeping it under tension all the time. Right, I need lots of long-haired maidens, and lots of cow neck tendons, and a lot of sap. Yes, take a long time. This is the vesper, or wasp, another bolt thrower. It is tiny. There, if I get you in shot there, it's quite clear how tiny this thing is. So presumably it must have been a lot more powerful than an ordinary bow. Otherwise they just wouldn't have bothered. Yeah, yes, the power's from these skeins of rope, or sinew as it would have been. Yes, we've got modern nylon rope here. But it supposedly would have been some sort of cow neck tendon rope. But I'm told that all attempts to reconstruct this have failed. Or it could be in horse hair, or whatever. It's a beautiful thing. So has this particular model been tried out? I'm not certain. Yes, well, you can see the bowstring's got a bit frayed. Another torsion weapon was called a baluster, and that, as its name suggests, threw balls of stone. I might just put my hand on it for scale. It is very small. This basic design of torsion weapon was also scaled up and used for massive wall-smashing siege engines. So there it is in its rusted state before conservation. And they got it to look like that. Did one side of it snap off catastrophically? Now this sword was interesting because ... Oh, I think I know what happened there. I think that was my attempt at a seamless segue between a video about lots of people pretending to be Romans and my trying to sell you the services of my sponsor, ExpressVPN. What is a VPN, some of you will be asking? Well, it's a Virtual Private Network. Now I already know that you are using the services of an Internet Service Provider, or ISP, because, well, you're watching this video. And thank you very much for doing so, by the way. Now at some point, excitedly, you clicked on a link which sent a message to your ISP saying, I want to see this video by Lindybeige. And then the ISP sent a message to YouTube via the interweb saying, we have a customer here who would quite like to see this particular video. Would you mind kindly ... thank you. And then the stream of information came back via your ISP to your screen, which is all fine and pleasant. But there are some disadvantages, and there is another way of doing it. You could use a VPN. Now, why might you want to do that? Well, privacy is one reason. Now all Internet Service Providers are able to see all the traffic going through them. So they're able to work out exactly where you've been, all the websites you've clicked on, all those links. And maybe you don't like the idea of that. For instance, when I bought the sofa, you can't see this sofa, what I would call a settee, but everyone has to call them sofas for some reason these days. You can't see it, but I bought it. And for about six months afterwards I was seeing really annoying, and frankly pointless, adverts for more settees, or sofas. I was possibly the least likely person in the world to buy a settee at that point, but never mind. I found it annoying, and that's all it really was, it was a bit annoying. Although it did tell me that my ISP ... had not really been brilliantly secretive about what websites I had been visiting, because somehow the world out there knew that I'd just bought a settee, or sofa. And maybe you see annoying adverts like that, and maybe you are a little disturbed by the fact that ISPs keep records. And in fact in some countries, like Britain and Australia, they are required by regulation to keep records. What will happen with those records in the future? Well, I don't know. But if it gives you peace of mind, and therefore greater happiness, to think that your ISP doesn't know where you've been, well, maybe you should use the services of a VPN. And what is money for if not bringing you more happiness? Now, if you want to see the uncensored internet, you might want to be able to pretend to be from another country. And with ExpressVPN you can pretend to be from one of 94 countries via 2,000 servers and more. They're adding more almost every week, all round the world. So the internet will think you are in Germany, or Australia, or Chad, wherever you want to be. Or rather, wherever you want to pretend to be from. And one advantage of that, for example, is that you might be using streaming services like Netflix or BritBox, and maybe you've exhausted everything you wanted to see in Netflix in your area. But if you pretend to be from somewhere else, then you get to see the menu available to people in that territory. And in the case of BritBox, I think BritBox is only available in Australia soon. At the moment, though, Britain, Canada and America, and I think that's about it. And I really like the hour. Sorry, bit of a segue there, no problem. But the point is that, you know, I'm enjoying something, and maybe you could too if you used a VPN and pretended to be from Britain. But then how do you get the ExpressVPN? Ah, well, if you go to www.expressvpn.com-lindybeige, then ... That's right, if you take out a one-year subscription, you can get three months for free. Right, so three months free, possible offer. Click in the link. I think I've pretty much said it all, really. So ExpressVPN, thank you so much for sponsoring me. And now back to people pretending to be suspiciously elderly Romans. This is a groma, a Roman piece of surveying kit. That might seem impressive enough, but near this table, with its rulers, lamps, inks and Egyptian papyrus maps, you can see a nicer one in brass. The four plumb lines gave you perfectly vertical lines in two pairs at perfect right angles to each other to sight along. But utterly overshadowing both is this amazing device, a dioptra surveying table. It looks like something the Victorians might have come up with, with precisely made screws and toothed gears, enabling you to get accurate measurements on uneven ground. Very handy if you want to build an aqueduct. Here's a nasty thing. Soldiers would carry perhaps just one of these for protecting the marching camp at night. You've got a piece of wood, when you're making a camp, there's loads of it around. Put a bit of a point on, keep that up, and burn it into the shaft. The reason you burn it is because you're keeping it loose. And once they've done their round parts, just put a bit of it, hammer that into the ground, sit that in there nice and loose, and put brass in. Somebody sneaks up on you in the night, they tread on that. Now the reason you kept it loose, if you hammer that in, and they put their foot in it, reflex action, they're going to pull the foot out. They learn it, and they wound it, and they can run away. If you keep it sitting loose, they tread on it, they bring it up, that's in the foot. They're not going to run away. You've got them. Let's talk about the vital topic of shoes. Shoes like this are very comfortable, but do nothing to keep your feet dry. The heel wears out and snaps there. I've only ever seen, I think, two Caligar that have been dug up where that bit survives, because that joint is really hard to work out how they did it. Oh, that's a rather beautifully done shoe. And hang on, that's not a pair of trousers, is it? Oh, no. We're all right, carry on. Of all the bath shoes that were found at Vindolanda, these are the only ones where the original upper has survived. Because normally somebody's thrown that away, and they've bobbed any old piece of leather they found on to use them as the overshoes. So we don't know what the tops look like, but that particular one was able to do it. But again, we're puzzled because we have this. These things here, what on earth are these for? Now, maybe they were fastened around the back somehow, but this doesn't look to have snapped. They've got nice little pointed bits on them. So I do not know, I honestly don't know. Legionaries trained with wooden swords and shields that were double the weight of their battle equivalents. A few sticks like this won't do much, but if each man carries one and you have an army of tens of thousands, then you can quickly plant in the earth a useful barrier. A frame saw, that design hasn't changed in millennia. Some carpenters planes there, much like modern examples. Roman equivalent of a deck chair. Yeah. Right, so this is strictly for officers? Yes. Oh, well, yeah, I can see that. That's clearly far too advanced a chair for an ordinary trooper. Reenactment kit standards vary. These Roman costumes are rubbish. Let us now fast forward a couple of centuries to AD 400. Right, well we have a chap here in rather magnificent late Roman kit, looking ever so Byzantine. Thank you very much. And I noticed that you have some spectacular brass and iron scales mixed on your cuirass there. And did that take you all afternoon to make? Yes, managed to knock it up on the way here. But no, it was actually constructed over a few months actually by the chaps over in India. Denial Steel Crafts, wonderful company, made it for me over a course of, I think it was four, maybe five months. But they put it together to exact specifications. And it fits very nicely, looks very shiny in photographs as well. So I'm a very happy bunny with this. It's very spangly. Do we have any good evidence for this alternating pattern? The patterns themselves, we're not fully sure exactly how they would have put them together. Mostly because a lot of the designs for the scales that we seem to have, or the scale armour, I should say, that we seem to have is pictographical. And this particular set was based off a sketch on a wall drawn by a soldier in Dura Europos. So there's no way of telling what colours he would have intended it to have been. He told me his shield was based on the diptych of Flavius Stilicho. I imagine he meant this one. It is called a spiculum. So this was designed as a replacement in part for the pilum or pilum. It is a throwing weapon predominantly. It still has the long iron shank which will bend on impact with the target. And these barbs and the pointed end will get stuck into the opponent behind or his shield if it doesn't reach him. So that would at the very least make your shield useless if it made contact and do some very nasty damage if you weren't fully armoured. So you think this would be thrown before contact with the enemy? Absolutely. I don't think it would be particularly useful in close combat. In our period, almost every single legionary was armed with a thrusting spear as well, like the one just behind me. So we were equipped with both throwing weapons and close combat weapons to do the job. But why not just use a pilum? For that I can't give you a full answer. We don't know why the pilum design fell out of favour but a lot of things did due to the changing nature of combat. This is a lot lighter than a pilum. You can carry a couple of them at once much more easily and they don't fly anywhere shorter in terms of their range. So it's more of a manoeuvrability and convenience thing perhaps on a battlefield. The Roman army at this period was a little bit more ranged heavy than it was close combat heavy. We've got two, three different types of javelins to use. Throwing axes, throwing darts, bows, crossbows, multiple different types of artillery. What dates do you have in mind? Roughly here today we're from between 435 to around 525 or so depending on which soldier in particular you're speaking to. We try to aim for around 400 AD roughly as a general benchmark. But with a lot of our equipment it's very hard to give specific dates because obviously finds only reflect the time the product was actually left in the ground as a last resort. And obviously different bits of equipment saw service in the Roman army for several generations. So you can never be fully sure exactly when an item was used just based on when it was excavated. So we try to stick to AD 400 as a rough guideline. So in 10 years time you're about to abandon us? Yep, pretty much. So we're actually here on a final tour of duty checking whether it's worth staying. But no, the weather's pretty terrible and this beer stuff, that'll never catch on. Well that's pretty. It's even better what's inside because it holds wine. So it's a popular one for Roman reenactors. Good to see that folding chair technology survived this late. So these are all goose feathers. We like to use waterfowl because they are tough, they're resilient to water and they easily reshape just by gently stroking them back into place. You don't have to worry about them getting too heavily damaged. The actual colours are not based on any particular finds because again we don't know what they would have used. I've just gone for personal colours on it because this is the colours I tend to think goes well with the rest of my kit, blue and black. But flamingos are waterfowl. Flamingos are waterfowl and now that you've mentioned it I think pink might be the way to go in the future. A pair of pink belts, pink boots, that might go. But this helmet is called the Christy's helmet. It's a very typical late Roman style ridge in the centre with basically two halves of a bowl stuck together, big cheek pieces and a nasal guard. It's called the Christy's helmet which is an unusual name because they're usually named after the place they're found such as Budapest or Intercisa. It's called Christy's because the original was sold at Christy's auction. And we don't know where the original was actually uncovered. Which has led to a couple of people saying it might be a fake. But I really like the shape so I went for one of these. Do you think on campaign they would ever have been that shiny? I think they would have been, partly because this is actually tinned steel so it's got tinning on it. And also because if you don't polish your gear it rusts and rust equals broken kit. So I do think they would have polished it as much as they possibly could with the resources they had available. Maybe not quite as shiny as this all the time but to be honest this is just a coat of polish and a lot of elbow grease. A pump drill. We like pump drills on this channel. Simple and effective. Ah, that's a very big throwing dart you've got. Well, yes, you could say that. It's called a plumbata. It's a late Roman throwing dart. Now we know that Vegetius talked about the Roman infantry carrying five of these in the hollow or behind their shield. And what we think is that as the shield lines were forming and the enemies coming into contact the middle and rear anchors would step back on their leg pluck out one of the plumbata, throw back the arm and lob it up as high as possible. And we think what the idea was these were short-range throwing weapons was the Germans or the Picts or the Apicotti were coming into contact. These things would rain down ahead. So you've got this dilemma of like you're about to advance on the Romans you've got your shield out in front you're about to clash with the Roman front line these things come raining down on you do you keep your shield down because you've got the Roman spears and the front line facing you or do you flip the shield up to catch these things in which case your whole belly is vulnerable to the Roman attack. So short range, very vicious. You can see it's almost like a mini pilum with that long armour piercing or muscle and flesh piercing shank there with the barbed head. It's not a killing weapon but if it gets in you it's going to hurt like hell and your instinct is to try and pull it out it's going to rip muscle and flesh aside and again that's going to incapacitate you and the Romans can move in to finish you off. So the great thing about the plumbata is that it often breaks on impact it's a cheap weapon to maintain because as long as you can recover this you can burn it back into a fresh piece of wood cut out a few bits of leather. We know we found one or one was found with a bit of leather around it we don't know the length of the shaft so we think they may have used leather fletchings but the illustrations show feathers so there's some kind of variation on that. Burn it in, dig a little hole in the ground plop it in, put a bit of lead into it and there's your new plumbata ready to go again. So you can fire off five very quickly they'll break, as long as you can salvage that on the battlefield you can get your five back and you're on the march again. Very effective weapon. And if the enemy's got horses you're not going to kill any horses but they're not going to want to stick around for very long. They won't. If you can imagine a horse and these are raining down on the flanks or the neck particularly armoured horse it's going to shy quite dramatically and in that moment of shying the rider's going to pitch and that's when the infantry have the opportunity to open up and pitch the rider off the saddle so a very effective weapon. Like I say, not lethal unless you get it in the eyeball which is a painful way to go try to pluck that out call it the Harold's death for example but very effective at discombobulating as you might say the enemy ranks. Discombobulating, that is the actual Latin name. Well we know there were discombobulators a particular troop type very low pay unfortunately. Bobby Latte, I think is the poem. That's like drinking a coffee made of... I'm not going to go there, no. So yes, the plumbata the late Roman throwing dart. But don't you think that there's a danger if they're thrown underarm that the less coordinated or reliable and scared troops they're going to be throwing them just upwards and backwards and all over the shop. Yes, my answer to that would be Vegetius talks about two Roman legions in the Balkans specialising in this weapon and I think they were called the Joviani and the Herculiani. If they were specialists then they knew how to wield this weapon very effectively which means they were trained very well. Based on the fame of those two legions most of the legions in the West we think took these weapons off because you have a lot of archaeological finds of them through the Western Empire not so much in the East particularly but if you were trained in these and you could master the technique of releasing at the right moments you would be equipped with them if not you'd be relegated to slingers or archery we know a third to a quarter of Roman legionaries were trained in the bow the sling a very effective weapon very vicious weapon so there's a good chance that if you showed that you did actually do as you're suggesting that kind of step back full throw and it goes that way it's like, oi you, get out of the ranks pick up that sling shot and take that bloody arm off you don't deserve it. Slinging backwards isn't going to harm anyone except maybe your neck as it wraps around you You could presumably throw these like a modern playing guard? Well you could there's the possibility and we've field tested these you can get a bit of range on that and the other way which is more effective range-wise if you get the spin right you can impact a target the only I think issue with this is you have to have a clear field of view to do it so your middle ranks and your rear ranks won't be able to do it because they've got the shield wall legionaries in front so you'd risk hitting the back of their helmets so again this is the throwing up method but if you were moving in a more skirmishing mode you are open ordered perhaps you could advance forward take one out throw it advance forward take one out throw it and keep up a little mini volley to break up the enemy as they're coming towards you once you've used all five then you can close up into close order A rotary quern a possible Roman development although the Romans didn't invent much just made what inventions there were more widely available You have a boar satchel Yes that's correct yes it's just useful for holding many things such as my wax tablets which I can use to report on any soldiers who have committed misconduct and my very handy dinner knife like so which is actually based on a Spanish hunting knife find but it's a little bit smaller so I can use it for eating and this is the first authentic Roman bottle opener yes yes absolutely but it's very convincing very handy little thing but the boar is great because the boar is waterproof and durable and a lot of people have leather satchels but I prefer the animal skin because you don't have to worry too much about it getting damaged in the weather or damaged by armor and shields It's not pleasant stuff to stroke is it though? No it's not It's quite grisly and harsh It is uncomfortable I certainly wouldn't want to sleep on a boar skin but I only usually wear this on the outside of armor or thick wool clothes so I don't really feel it uncomfortable on the inside it is just normal skin so the discomfort doesn't really get to me This wicked sword was for eviscerating Saxons or was it? Do you even know a weapon when you see one? No it's for weaving not a tapestry an embroidery oh what a beautiful bit of cooperage barrels like they used to be no metal in this at all not so much as a nail watertight when wet but don't let it dry out or it'll leak a rope maker I did a whole video about that neither of these is a kettle but they are both black like all cooking vessels a mobile field forge you'll need a frame a bellows a hearth and an anvil which needn't be huge and then you're set up this actually functions as a whistle as well time to pack away