Crossed belts

[dengland]

How should the sword and pugio belts be worn? Should they be worn up over the lorica seg or below around the waist/hip area?

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Crossed belts are for Hamata (Chain mail) not for segmentata (plate armour)

They were most likely of republican origin.

M.VIB.M.

[dengland]

no possibility of crossed belts being worn over segmentata?

[M. Demetrius]

In a general sense, the time period is wrong, Dengland. Crossed belts went out of fashion about the same time that segmentata starts to show up, or at least that's the commonest viewpoint.

[Peroni]

Crossed belts went out of fashion about the same time that segmentata starts to show up, or at least that's the commonest viewpoint.

Not quite.. we still see many soldiers wearing double belts on grave stele from mis 1s C Rhineland. Yes, they are not shown in armour admittedly, but it does show that they were probably still worn with mail and perhaps scale well into the 1st C.

Some can be seen worn cross over each other, but there are also depictions of belts worn one above the other - resting on top of the lower belt set. Have a look in the imagebase!

[M. Demetrius]

Thanks for the correction, Peroni.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Try wearing crossbelts on Segmentata.. you'll see.

M.VIB.M.

[jvrjenivs]

Try wearing crossbelts on Segmentata.. you'll see.

M.VIB.M.

Why not, HJ? I've often used multiple belts on segmentata without any problem.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

With me they always slip off.

But when someone has a depiction of how they were worn, on a relief or tombstone, please post it.

M.VIB.M.

[dengland]

The belts do indeed tend to slide down,hence my question. The belts stay up better, when worn higher up on the seg. The lacing rings act as anchors for the belts. I understand, that the corbridge seg was worn starting around 40 AD(an estimate) so I would think the segmentata would have held up some crossed belts. I'm employed by a military structured organization and change does not occur over a few years but over decades and even then is not universally accepted,or adopted. Older equipment is never discarded (unless deemed dangerous to the user)and then is used as backup front line gear. I would think as the segmentata was introduced the crossed belts would have been used until it was deemed dangerous.

[Forty-One]

The bare fact is, nobody knows. The only sculptural evidence for the practice is contentious. The only (clear and unarguable) depictions of men in segmented plate cuirasses and belts are the ones shown on Trajan's column. The column, dubious source though it is, does actually show a few men in segmented plate armour with more than one waist belt on top. This is usually hand-waved away as a sculptor's boo-boo by commentators, though.

Grave stelae show mid-1st century legionaries (in tunics) wearing pairs of belts (Q. Petilius Secundus wears his parallel to each other, not crossed), and others in (what is usually interpreted as) mail shirts with a single belt and a baldric. Some auxiliary stelae show pairs of belts apparently worn over mail. So the two styles appear to have been in service concurrently for a while and both were worn over mail. There's some tenuous evidence (apart from Trajan's column) that the fashion for wearing pairs of belts might have survived in some circles until the early 2nd century. The Herculaneum soldier had two plated belts with him and the early 2nd century Tiberianus archive from Egypt mentions a soldier acquiring a pair of belts.

So it's possible that some men might have worn a pair of belts with their plate armour, since that belt style was fashionable for some of the time that that armour was in service, but there's only dubious evidence of it.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I have worn 2 belts with mail, but it is feasable to wear them with the seg.
When I have worn a single belt, I use a couple of hangers to help stop the belt sliding off, as even with the tie-loops, it will do this over the course of a day.
Two belts would need some support too, as the weight of the pugio and gladius will drag them down!

[dengland]

All good ideas in the quest to keep my belts up.

[Nurglitch]

All good ideas in the quest to keep my belts up.

I've had a lot of problems with this. In the end I emulated another soldier's example and drove leather thongs through the third segments - two at the back, two at the sides. They work as belt hoops and keep the belt up just fine.

[dengland]

Great idea. Tried it today and the thongs seems to keep everything in place without being too apparent. Now I'll try and find some further evidence to support my reconstruction. Thanks again.