Buttons frog?

[marcii ulpi messala]

Always they appear in military places, does someone know the concrete usefulness(utility)?

[marcii ulpi messala]

Backs side

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

i have read somewhere there could be paenula buttons.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

That was the opinion I formed Cesar, as I have seen some in Brian Stobbs collection and reproductions that he made of them!

[M. Demetrius]

Some belt and/or pouch flap toggles looked like that, too.

[Peroni]

Button/loop belt fasteners.

[mcbishop]

Always they appear in military places, does someone know the concrete usefulness(utility)?

These are button-and-loop fasteners. As such they seem to have had a variety of functions.

1. A means of fastening clothing (they often used to be called 'dress fasteners' in the British literature). As such, they appear to be shown on the paenula (two buttons with two toggles) of the Camomile Street soldier.

2. Associated with (although in an unclear manner) with horse harness.

3. In a larger form, and with a double loop, possibly used instead of a buckle, based largely upon the discovery of one with belt fittings (without a buckle) wrapped around a sword at Vindonissa.

There were probably other uses too, but one thing seems fairly certain: they were not exclusively military, since they occur on sites and in contexts where there are no military finds.

One word of advice: if you post photos of artefacts for identification, it is always useful to have a scale (even a coin will do; the Royal Mint publishes exact dimensions of all British coinage on the web, and I assume other countries do likewise, so it is easy to check).

Mike Bishop