3rd-4th c roman shoes (Cuijk campagi images)

[Martin Moser]

What I need are a pair of boots that I can use as cold/wet weather footwear to replace my old Air Force combat boots, which I currently use. I'd really like to be as authentic as possible, but the bottom line is that I need footwear that will keep the rain and the muck and the cold out to a reasonable extent. They can be high topped, low topped (as long as they're at least roughly as high as the calcei or caligae, high ankle), whatever, I'm not picky about that. Don't even necessarily need to be a native Roman design. I might have picked up a pair of native boots campaigning somewhere.

Hm, depends how strict you are - I'm not aware of any securely dated finds of 5th century boots. You could either look for depictions (frescoes, mosaics) and make something based on that or you could decide that some of the boots found in Egypt (Achmim, Antinoe) and dated mid 2nd century an later (dating is uncertain for practically all of these) might be 5th century ...