Civilian Belts

[Adam Carr]

What type of belt do you re-enactors wear when you take the armour off? Are there accurate reconstructions of civilian belts?

I'd like to wear something simple (not the military balteus) when I'm just in a tunic.

BTW: I'm referring to 1st c. A.D. clothing.

[Primvs Pavlvs]

I generally tie a piece of wool rope, or leather around my waist.

[emj1s]

or take some scrap wool from your tunic and make a simple belt

[Matthew Amt]

Well, a *soldier* off-duty in his tunic would still wear his belt and dagger. But the plated belt was definitely a military thing, so a strictly civilian belt would be plain leather. Not sure if they used a buckle or not, though! You should have a cloth tie belt for your tunic, in any case, so you can just use that.

There is a reference to a "money belt", apparently two layers of leather stitched together, with coins concealed between them. But again, no idea if it has a "regular" buckle or what.

Vale,

Matthew

[Tarbicus]

Or you could use the fascia ventralis:
[url:2dg6io12]http://www.flickr.com/photos/mymuk/60615489/[/url]

[Crispvs]

I tie a piece of braid tightly around my tunic and hitch my tunic up over this before putting anything else on. Even when in 'tunic order' it is best to hitch the tunic up over a tie of some sort before putting on the military belt. As Matthew says, an off duty soldier would still wear his military belt when off duty, but I would be inclined to think that like me, they first hitched their tunics up over a braid or leather tie. I think that the same sorts of basic tie would be used by civilians as belts when they needed them, but most of the evidence seems to suggest that civilians generally went about with their tunics hanging at full length, as seen here:
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/bakery.jpg

Crispvs