Caesarean Legionnaires without armor?

[Robert Vermaat]

Fighting as heavy and light infantry used to be a characteristic for the auxiliua. For Late Roman troops it would not be something specific for an elite corps either. But the antesignani seem always to be fighting at the front - in that role, fighting without armour would be suicidal.

My point is that although there may have been a name for the front line or a corps of elite soldiers performing special tasks, we can't conclude from Vegetius and Ammianus that they were indeed always called antesignani.

And even if they were, they would (in their role as front line or elite attack forces) have been unarmoured.
But almost every Late Roman unit or task force could perform task without armour.

[drsrob]

Vegetius cofirms that they wore armour:

[...] Legio autem propriis cohortibus plena cum grauem armaturam, hoc est principes hastatos triarios antesignanos, item leuem armaturam, hoc est ferrentarios sagittarios funditores ballistarios, [...]

"The legion's own cohorts at full size with the heavy armed, which include the principes, hastati, triarii and antesignani, also the light armed, which include skirmishers, bowmen, slingers and artillerymen, ..."

The fact that the infantrymen from the mixed force were selected from them implies that they were light infantry. Confirmation of this can be found in Vegetius, who mentions that they have lighter armour than ordinary legionaries.

[...] Omnes antesignani uel signiferi, quamuis pedites, loricas minores accipiebant et galeas ad terrorem hostium ursinis pellibus tectas. [...]

"All antesignani as well as signiferi wore smaller armour and helmets which they covered with bearskins to frighten the enemy."

Livy not only used the word antesignani to denote the front ranks, but also equated the antesignani with the hastati and the principes (XXII.5.9) and thus identified them as heavy infantry of the line.

I'm not convinced that the antesignani as used by Vegetius and Ammianus are anything else than archaizing uses.

On this we are fully in agreement.

Vegetius (II.2) indeed mentions the antesignani as a distinct type, next to principes, hastati and triarii (I’m preparing a post on that one), all gravis armatura, heavy infantry.
Vegetius also equates (like you said) the antesignani with the signiferi (II.16).
But Vegetius also equated the antesignani with the campigeni, a word that seems to be (from their job description as drill instructors) a synonym for campidoctors (II.7), who seem to have taken up the role of ‘new centurions’ among the ordinem primi. However, in his inconsistency Vegetius on some occasions suddenly gives less armour to the antesignani (when equated with signiferi in II.16) than to the centurions, clearly a result of his problems with reconciling old sources. His one source (which he used in II.2) seems to have identified the antesignani as heavy infantry, but another (II.7 and II.16) saw the antesignani only as NCO’s fighting with the heavy infantry.

For Vegetius the term antesignani is an archaic term also, but he quotes it from earlier sources. In these sources the term is a living one. These sources are from the late republic and/or early empire.
One source, mentioning triarii, principes and hastati, must have been from the 2nd Century BC, as these were no longer distinct troop types in the 1st Century BC.
The other, mentioning the antesignani as a distinct troop type, must have dated from the later 1st Century BC or from the 1st Century AD.

My point is that although there may have been a name for the front line or a corps of elite soldiers performing special tasks, we can't conclude from Vegetius and Ammianus that they were indeed always called antesignani.

Not from Ammianus, but from Vegetius and Caesar.

[Severus]

Ave! From Caesar's Civil Wars, there is a passage from the siege of Dyrrhachium in which his troops make themselves coats out of hides and such to protect themselves from Pompey's archers. To me, that implies that they did not have mail, which would have stopped the arrows.

I have found something in my readings of history that might shed some light on the subject.

After reading an article about Hernando de Soto (Spanish conquistador) I found an interesting passage that refers to his soldiers' mail coats being useless against the native arrows and they relied instead on thick quilted tunics to resist them. . . here is the passage I found. . .


"...the Indian released the arrow [at a distance of fifty feet] and it penetrated both hauberk and basket...So they commanded another very valuable hauberk be placed over that which was already on the basket..[the arrow] after passing through four thickness' of mail, remained crossed therein with an equal portion of the arrow protruding on each side...The Spaniards, ...thenceforward...were quite undeceived as to how much protection... these very esteemed coats of mail could afford them. Thus those who owned them jested about them calling them Flemish linens: and to use instead, they devised quilted cloaks three or four fingers thick, with long folds that covered the chests and haunches of the horse. These cloaks, which were made of blankets resisted arrows more effectively than any other of their defensive arms;"4


From this website: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/calderon/ ... ensivearms


Having no access to bows or chainmail I always assumed that chainmail offered good protection from penetrating weapons but this passage seems to cast some doubt on the subject. It might explain why Caesar's men were knitting quilted coats (Maybe they too thought chainmail wasn't so great against arrows) to be additional protection, not their only protection. . .

Anyhow, thought I would offer this piece of information up to you and see if people had experience with firing arrows through chainmail. . .


Matt Webster

[Tarbicus]

One thing springs to mind about being fired at during a siege is you are no doubt unusually close to the archers shooting arrows at you from the top of a wall, especially if you are at the base of a wall or gateway. Not only that, the arrows are no doubt firing down, not up into the air, and wouldn't lose any velocity. Maybe this has an effect on the stopping power of hamata, where it might be adequate during normal battle conditions? The closeness and downward velocity might give the arrow, at a complete and utter guess, twice the normal penetration, hence the need for something extra on top of your armour?

[Severus]

One thing springs to mind about being fired at during a siege is you are no doubt unusually close to the archers shooting arrows at you from the top of a wall, especially if you are at the base of a wall or gateway. Not only that, the arrows are no doubt firing down, not up into the air, and wouldn't lose any velocity. Maybe this has an effect on the stopping power of hamata, where it might be adequate during normal battle conditions? The closeness and downward velocity might give the arrow, at a complete and utter guess, twice the normal penetration, hence the need for something extra on top of your armour?

Your theory on height advantage sounds reasonable but the conquistadors weren't besieging the natives with any serious fortifications and the example shows the arrow being shot at the mail draped over or on a basket.

I think this points more to the fact that Caesar's men at Dyrrhachium were augmenting their armor rather than preparing their only source of body armor.

Anyone ever fired an arrow at their expensive hamata and recorded the results?

Anyone have any idea who bows from Native Americans match up against bows from Caesar's time. More hitting power? less? types of arrow heads?

This seems interesting. . .


Matt Webster

[Matthew Amt]

There have been all KINDS of tests of arrows and other weapons versus mail (and other forms of armor), but very few that used mail and weapons that were accurate enough to give any realistic results. Here's a recent one, and the discussion goes on for TWELVE pages and probably has links to several other such tests:

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread ... adid=72060

This board probably has a few such discussions.

The problem is that it is VERY hard to reproduce historical mail, since even a minor variation in the metal, ring size, riveting method, etc., can dramatically alter the mail's properties. It is also hard to reproduce a proper backing (padding and body) if we don't know exactly what sort of padding was worn, and don't want to stand still to get shot at! By and large, however, I think the better tests have been showing mail to be darn good protection against arrows.

Could it simply be that the Conquistadors' mail had large enough rings that the native arrows simply passed through without breaking any rings? We really need more data. Using this story as a judgement on the defensive capabilities of Roman mail is too much of a stretch.

Valete,

Matthew

[Tarbicus]

Anyone ever fired an arrow at their expensive hamata and recorded the results?

No point, it's not identically the same as Roman mail, and it's only very recently that we have any analysis of the makeup of the actual content and possible means of manufacture of the metal itself. The conquistador analogy doesn't apply either, but Matt's spelled that out.