Was the Lorica REALLY polished?

[John Maddox Roberts]

Allow me to clarify a term here: "Burnishing" does not simply mean "polishing." Jewelers use a tool called a burnisher to put the final polish on metal. It is a small, rounded rod of varying shape made of extremely hard steel. It is rubbed vigorously over the surface of the metal to smooth out those microscopic scratches that leave a matte finish. I don't know if the Romans had burnishers but Medieval people certainly did. Burnishing leaves a true mirror finish. The problem with burnishing is that you can only burnish a tiny area at a time. I once burnished a helmet to a mirror finish and my arm didn't recover for months. To keep a whole armor burnished, you'd have to have at least one slave who did nothing else, so if Romans had burnishers, only a centurion or higher officer could afford the process. In any case, the many overlaps of the segmentata would make it impractical to burnish. A muscle cuirass, however, could be burnished, and since they seem to have been made of bronze (assuming the Romans really used them at all) they could have been burnished, as might greaves and helmet, though the time required would have been great. <p></p><i></i>