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Part of the colossal success of the Roman Empire must be attributed not only to its impressive army size, but also its ability in producing arms and armor and supplying that army, which was distributed along hundreds of kilometers, on the very edges of the Roman frontiers. This video aims to analyze this astounding success, making it the first multicultural empire with a fully defined professional army. However, the difficulty in making this happen can be seen throughout modern archeological findings; there was no standardization of weapons and armour, and within every unit was a wide variety of equipment with a spectrum of lifespans, design, and style. The worst of these examples are Roman helmets found with no cheek guards and no final polishing. Their most impressive achievemnt though, was turning expensive state-of-the-art body armour, like chainmail and scale armour into regular commodities worn by every soldier; a remarkable feat for any army of that time.


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Berlin Papirus 6765.
Carlisle: H476, Inv. No. 14.
CIL XIII, 2828.
CIL XIII, 6677.
Codex Theodosianus posterior 15, 15, 1
Digesto 48.6.
Dio Cass. 69.12.2.
Tac. Hist. 2.82.1.
Veg. Mil. 2. 11.

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Aurrecoechea-Fernández, J.”“Talleres dedicados a la producción de equipo militar en los campamentos romanos de León” in Ángel Morillo Cerdán (ed.) Producción y abastecimiento en el ámbito militar: arqueología militar romana en Hispania, 2006, 309-334..

Bishop, M. C. “The distribution of military equipment within Roman forts of the first century A.D.” in C. Unz (ed.) Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms III. 13. internationaler Limeskongreß Aalen 1983 Vortrage (Stuttgart 1986), 717–23.

Bishop, M. C. “The Military Fabrica and the production of arms in the early Principate” in Bishop M. C. (ed.) The Production and Distribution of Roman Military Equipment: Proceedings of the Second Roman Military Equipment Research Seminar, BAR International Series 275, 1985, Oxford: BAR. 1-42.

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Paddock, J. “Some changes in the manufacture and supply of Roman helmets under the Late Republic and Early Empire” in Bishop M. C. (ed.) The Production and Distribution of Roman Military Equipment: Proceedings of the Second Roman Military Equipment Research Seminar, BAR International Series 275, 1985, Oxford: BAR. 142-159.

Quesada Sanz, F. Ultima Ratio Regis: Control y Prohibición de las Armas desde la Antigüedad a la Edad Moderna. Madrid: Polifemo. 2009.

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Sim, D. “Roman Chain-Mail: Experiments to Reproduce the Techniques of Manufacture” in Britannia, Vol. 28, 1997, 359-371.

van Driel-Murray, C. “The production and supply of military leatherwork in the first and second centuries A.D.: a review of the archaeological evidence” in Bishop M. C. (ed.) The Production and Distribution of Roman Military Equipment: Proceedings of the Second Roman Military Equipment Research Seminar, BAR International Series 275, 1985, Oxford: BAR. 43-81.