Oi... New, and Where to Start?

[Matthew Amt]

Excellent... now we're getting somewhere.

Yes, there's a link to that photo in my second post above!

So that should be the shield I'm looking for yes? Where are they available? Every site I visit they don't seem to have that one up for sale (though the SoTW has a blank version).

Decent finished shields may be hard to come by. Deepeeka's latest is pretty good, but they may offer only the straight-sided type. Same with the one by Daniyal. Shipping will be a beast... Soul of the Warrior's blank is excellent.

As for that belt... could you not use a later era belt like this and slide off the apron? You'd then have a fairly plain, metal stamped belt. Then when you do a later period, slide it back on?

Well, those plates are pretty firmly mid- to late-first century AD, and I also think they're cast a little too thick and heavy. Thin stamped sheet was more common for that general style. But no, for Caesar's era there is DARN little evidence for decorated belt plates, heck even for plain ones! So most groups won't go much farther than completely plain rectangles of sheet brass, tinned if you like, and maybe only on the front of the belt, not the back. That's the "safe" interpretation. On the belt you linked to, and other Indian-made belts, I really don't like the way the apron straps are made removable with a loop at the top like that. I think someone did come up with evidence that the general concept is legitimate, but I still don't think it is well-executed. On that particular apron, I have not seen any evidence for the form of the studs, and they are WAY too thick and heavy. There just aren't any off-the-shelf belts that I recommend at all, at the moment.

What was the purpose of the apron?

Bling and jingle!

There's a site I frequent for Legio history information... have you seen it? Curious to know if their information is accurate:

http://www.livius.org/le-lh/legio/legions.htm

Haven't really dug through it in any detail.

Have you ever put thought into making the Legio XX handbook into a .pdf or other text file for printing? Would be a nice off-net reference.

Feel free! Putting the Handbook on the web immediately made the old printed version obsolete. I don't update it nearly as often as I used to, but I still don't see much point in making a pdf that could soon be outdated. For better hard-copy references, get books!! I but stand on the shoulders of giants, namely all the published authors out there. Get Bishop and Coulston, every volume of JRMES you can find, the Vindonissa catalog, Graham Sumner's Ospreys and his "Roman Army: Wars of the Empire", both volumes of Lorica Segmentata (by Mike Bishop and Mike Thomas)(both actually available online), etc., etc.

http://www.larp.com/legioxx/bibliog.html

Vale,

Matthew