Roman plate armour

Trajan' s Column, which still stands in the middle of Rome, depicts legionaries in very impressive plate armor. Renaissance historians interested in ancient monuments named it lorica segmentata . They knew that gladiators also used it in arenas, but that was all for a long time. More light was shed on this piece of military equipment only by archaeological finds from the second half of the 20th century, which allowed us to understand how it was made, how it functioned, and how long it was used. The most famous find of Roman plate armor was in Corbridge, England, in 1964, other fragments were found elsewhere in Great Britain and Spain, and an almost complete set was discovered in 2018 in Kalkreis, Germany. Thanks to scientific methods, we now know the technology of producing this armor well, we have a chronology of its use and, thanks to various groups of reenactors, we also have enough information about its practical use, strengths and weaknesses. The book by a leading expert on this topic will present a more recent perspective on other parts of Roman armor: so-called muscle cuirass, arm guards, shin guards and horse armor. The drawings in the book are based on the latest knowledge and archaeological findings. For a better idea, artistic depictions of the use of plate armor in scenes from the everyday life of Roman soldiers are also included.