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There is no definitive answer for this (I know I've got B&C 2nded 8) ), but what do you think ...
Rectangular scutum contined in use with the legions well into the mid to late 3rd century. THe only scutum found in the 3rd century had rawhide edging, as did the oval shields. Brass edging for shields was dropped early in the 3rd century. But when? Can any particular crisis or emperor be pinned down to the interesting equipment changes of the early 3rdC?
I'm putting together a legionary kit for Septimus Severus (6th legion, based at Eboracum). And my scutum has brass edging. It's a transition era, what do you think ...?
~ Paul Elliott
The Last Legionary
This book details the lives of Late Roman legionaries garrisoned in Britain in 400AD. It covers everything from battle to rations, camp duties to clothing.
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I am very leery of associating these changes with a specific event or person. We have a grand total of one find to base our assumption on, after all. Unlike in the red-hot days of the later 19th and 20th centuries, having older military equipment didn't actually endanger you in those days. What I imagine happened was that rawhide edging always coexisted with brass, but in the course of the wars beginning in the days of Marcus Aurelius, it became more common as the laborious process of making the brass edging was dropped whenever time pressure dictated. We know that metal edging existed as late as the Migration era, so I don't believe the Romans ever actually dropped it, but at some point in the 3rd century it just wasn't worth the trouble for everyday shields.
Entirely unscientific guess for the 'tipping point': Western frontier during the end of the Severan dynasty and the wars that followed, Eastern frontier with the Sassanid invasions, Danube frontier, probably something to do with the succession struggles, but at the latest around the time of the Goths. By the reign of Valerian, only legacy shields or expensive items had brass edging, and when the dust settled on the Gallic and Palmyrene 'empires', Carausius, and the Goths and Persians, rawhide simply was what you used.
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Volker Bach
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Volker, you just sent me images from Denmark showing 3rd-c. (?) metal edges. I mean, if the weapons in these bogs are thought of as possibly Roman, then either Roman round/oval shields still had metal edges in the 3rd c., or Germanic shields had them.
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Quote:Volker, you just sent me images from Denmark showing 3rd-c. (?) metal edges. I mean, if the weapons in these bogs are thought of as possibly Roman, then either Roman round/oval shields still had metal edges in the 3rd c., or Germanic shields had them.
Nydam is a pretty good guide to what I meant. The shields in the picture are most likely not Roman, but Roman-influenceed, and some of the edging may well be Roman. However, if you could the number of shield bosses recovered and compare the amount of edging, it's clear that not all shields can have had metal edging. I doubt it was removed (why would you do that and leave the boss on), so most likely some had organic material instead. And I'm guessing the same went for Roman shields at the time - a reduction in the use of metal edging, and an increase in cheaper organic materials like rawhide.
I don'tt believe either that all 1st century shields were metal-edged or that all 3rd century ones were edged in rawhide, but IIRC the amount of metal edging found decreases quite steeply.
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Volker Bach
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Is it possible that not all shields were even edged?
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
a.k.a. Paul M.
