Foot protection in battle

[Robert Vermaat]

We Roman soldiers are protected from head to leg: helmet, body armour, manicae, ocrae, big shields.. but nothing on the foot.

A question that I get from time to time when demonstrating Late Roman infantry arms & armour is - what I do when my opponent targets my feet. Of course, a sword or spear hit on either foot would render me incapable of continuing the battle effectively (or bleed to death on the spot). As would blows to shins and shoulders, but these are well-protected. So why not the foot? Any ideas?

[ValentinianVictrix]

Attempting to hit a small target like someones foot with a spear, axe or sword is difficult when the opponent is within range to use such weapons, as your not fighting in isolation. Your actively dodging blows from your opponent, those next to him, whilst at the same time making sure your not in the way of your fellows trying to do the same to them.

And of course to hit someone's feet you have to look down, and then stab downwards, which means your less likely to be able to defend in coming attacks, whilst at the same time exposing your head, right shoulder and back to a weapon thrust.

When you read battle accounts in Ammianus, Julian etc its pretty certain that the vast majority of casualties are caused when one army routs and then the pursuers slash at the backs and legs of those who are fleeing.

[Matthew Amt]

Yup, that's pretty much what I tell people: if someone were going for my feet, I'd just lower the shield and stab up into his face while he's looking down. Always gets a wince!

Plus, if you have foot armor, you get to march while wearing it. Twenty miles a day...

Matthew

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Juvenalis in his Satires writes on the pain it causes when a soldier treads on your toe with his hobnailed caligae, from experience i know what he means...

The protection of feet is not known, the Samurai wore iron foot ptotection at times, but whether that existed in the Roman army is unclear and probably it did not exist...

M.VIB.M.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Keeping your shield at some disatnce to your body also protects the feet without having to lower your shield. It would require that the oponent actually bends to see and reach your feet,and naturally,nobody would do that! It is perhaps not by chance that the greeks developed foot-and-toe and ankle protections even though they also fighting in dence formations. The Greeks however didn't have as long shields as the romans,and they couldn't keep their shield at a distance to their body. What they did seem to do is rest the shield on the shoulder and raise the rim almost horizontally. In close quarters this positioning of the shield would have been very effective against any overhand used weapons,like those the greeks were using,and it it very commonly depicted in art.
Khaire
Giannis

[WorkMonkey1]

Same with hand protection, hand protection doesn't get used regular until the middle ages, why?

I guess it doesnt matter how much metal you stick over a hand or foot, if a good solid hit is put on it it will still shatter the bones, meaning protecting it is more encumbering than it is protecting

[Sean Manning]

We Roman soldiers are protected from head to leg: helmet, body armour, manicae, ocrae, big shields.. but nothing on the foot.

A question that I get from time to time when demonstrating Late Roman infantry arms & armour is - what I do when my opponent targets my feet. Of course, a sword or spear hit on either foot would render me incapable of continuing the battle effectively (or bleed to death on the spot). As would blows to shins and shoulders, but these are well-protected. So why not the foot? Any ideas?

Well, the feet are a small, mobile target. And because they are far below shoulder height, a standing man is vulnerable when he reaches down to strike them. It doesn't seem like a good target with most weapons.

In renaissance Italian martial arts, the classic defense against a blow to the lower part of your forward leg is to step back with the forward foot while striking your opponent high. Simple geometry indicates that your blow will land before theirs does. I would also think that a spear thrust against a target that low would be easy to trap against the ground ... especially if it missed and hit the ground.

I agree that the late development of good hand protection shows that our idea of what's important to protect wasn't universal.

[Epictetus]

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about this (because I obviously don’t :wink: ), but I thought this was interesting and did some internet searching.

The Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology in Australia has an object they label as “Italic bronze foot armour, Olympia, Greece, 5th century BC.” You can find it here in their collection highlight section.

They also have a picture:


Any thoughts on this? It doesn’t look very practical to me.

[M. Demetrius]

I'll bet there's a story behind the dents near the big toenail. hock:

[Matthew Amt]

Yeah, there's a pair of those footguards in the British Museum, too:

http://www.larp.com/hoplite/BMgr1.jpg

At a guess, they date to the Archaic era, pre-Classical, and they seem to be even more rare than the (already rare) arm and thigh guards. Probably went the way of the dodo before 500 BC.

Matthew

[M. Demetrius]

Of course, as we all know, foot-stabbing was dropped from the arsenal, since the Rules of Engagement forbid injuring an opponent in his toes and metacarpals. In the interest of keeping everything neat and clean, and all that, nobody was allowed to step on, stomp on, pierce, smash, cut or stab feet. That way, everybody could go home after the encounter and walk upstairs to bed. :lol:

Or not. Heh.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Yeah, there's a pair of those footguards in the British Museum, too:

http://www.larp.com/hoplite/BMgr1.jpg

At a guess, they date to the Archaic era, pre-Classical, and they seem to be even more rare than the (already rare) arm and thigh guards. Probably went the way of the dodo before 500 BC.

Matthew

OR,they belonged to some 4th century cavalrymen. For some reason,thir style doesn't look archaic to me. This one looks a lot like the pair in the BM.
I think Connolly has painted a 5th century hoplite wearing them,fighting against a shielded cavalryman.
Khaire
Giannis

[Forty-One]

I recall I once visited an archaeology theme park near Aberdeen (Scotland) and was regaled with lurid tales of Celtic warriors felling hapless Romans by stabbing them in the feet with their spears (the spear held two-handed like a rifle and bayonet of course. Shields, I could only conclude, were for wimps in the Celtic world). If the foot attack failed then they could, I was told, also decapitate the Romans by "swinging their spears around". I think the guy had been watching far too much "Xena: Warrior princess"...

This is tangential to this, I realise, but doesn't one of the accounts of Crassus's (or is it Antony's?) campaigns against the Parthians mention feet being "nailed" to the ground with arrows?

[Sean Manning]

This is tangential to this, I realise, but doesn't one of the accounts of Crassus's (or is it Antony's?) campaigns against the Parthians mention feet being "nailed" to the ground with arrows?

Yes, Plutarch, Crassus, 25.6.

[Matthew Amt]

OR,they belonged to some 4th century cavalrymen. For some reason,thir style doesn't look archaic to me.

OH! Yeah, you could be right! And I agree about the style, so that does make more sense overall. Gosh, almost makes me want to go cavalry!

Naaaaahhhhhhh.... (Cavalry: Portable emergency rations for infantry!)

I recall I once visited an archaeology theme park near Aberdeen (Scotland) and was regaled with lurid tales of Celtic warriors felling hapless Romans by stabbing them in the feet with their spears (the spear held two-handed like a rifle and bayonet of course. Shields, I could only conclude, were for wimps in the Celtic world). If the foot attack failed then they could, I was told, also decapitate the Romans by "swinging their spears around". I think the guy had been watching far too much "Xena: Warrior princess"...

Yipes. Where do people *get* stuff like this? Presumably you were not seduced by his honeyed rhetoric?

Valete,

Matthew