The Ancients - Roman Weapons

Episode Date: September 26, 2021

Legendary leaders and notorious battles, we imagine the sound of clinking armour. But what did the Romans take with them into battle? In the second of our episodes recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival, Legio II Augusta's David Richardson talks through a selection of iconic weapons and deadly devices used by Roman soldiers.Legio II Augusta Website - https://www.legiiavg.org.uk/For behind the scenes and extra Ancients, follow Tristan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ancientstristan/

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host.

And in today's podcast, well, we are talking with another member of the reenactment group, the awesome reenactment group, that is Legio II Augusta. You might remember a few weeks back, I interviewed Alyssa Van Lint, all about female gladiators. Now we recorded that podcast at the Chalk Valley History Festival and whilst we were still at that festival I also interviewed David Richardson, head honcho of Legio II Augusta. Now David, he knows his stuff particularly about the Roman army and about their weaponry, their arms and armour, how they probably used certain bits of equipment. And so in this episode, David and I will be

talking about various weapons used by the Romans. We're going to be looking at swords, daggers, spears, javelins and more. So without further ado, here's David. David, it is wonderful that you've taken the time to come on the podcast today. It's a pleasure to be here, sat halfway up a hill overlooking Chalk Valley History Festival. It is such an idyllic spot and David, for me it's so nice to be back at this history festival after it seems like such a long hiatus and I can imagine for you and your your team your Roman team how lovely is it to be back? Oh to be out and displaying again and meeting the public it's what we do it's a second life that we lead as Romans. But it's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Now, we have got with us an incredible array of Roman weaponry, arms,

and also some other pieces of costume, pieces of equipment and all that. And David, is it fair to say with the Roman arms in particular that we're going to be talking through, some of these are really iconic looking weapons, but they're all one way or another they're all quite unique. Yes films have given us the grounding for what many people know about the Romans from Spartacus to Ben-Hur, we see these Roman films, Fall of the Roman Empire, and it leaves a lasting impression. Everybody seems to know about the Romans, the Romans. But when you get in greater depth and start doing research on what were they really like, what do we know, and start looking at the weaponry,

you come up with many different styles of weapons, the most famous being the Roman short sword, the gladius. And in so many films you see people fencing with them, when primarily it was designed as a stabbing weapon. And the reason for that was that Rome's enemies tended to use a long slashing sword. An Iron Age sword was primarily this swinging sword with an Iron Age warrior on the other end of it. Well a man who does that has to raise his arm in the air or out to the side and most Iron Age warriors wore little armour. This short stabbing sword would flick out from behind a shield and Roman legionaries were taught to aim for the face, the neck, the soft abdomen, and, if that wasn't a possibility, the chest.

Not so much the chest, because swords can get stuck into bone, and they can get jammed. But the Roman gladius has a triangular point and a short, thick blade, which when you pump it, it's quite lethal. But many copy the Pompeii style of sword, which is completely parallel sides, when in fact there were quite a number of various designs to the blade. The handles are all pretty standard. The pommels on the swords again can vary from round to elliptical. They were made of bone ivory or wood or any mixture of the three. They're a nice feel in the hand. It's a nice grip. And the blade at the end could be, as I described, dead straight, as in a Pompeii pattern blade,

or it could have narrowed sides and a wider angle at the end, which is the Mainz pattern blade. Then we have the Fulham pattern blade. The Fulham. The Fulham pattern. Yes, good old London. The Fulham pattern blade is similar to the Mainz pattern blade, but it has a narrowed middle like the Mainz blade,

but fatter at the stock where the handle meets it. But they did exactly the same job. We've got one of these examples of galleys with us now and you mentioned that the palm and my hand is holding it now it's quite heavy it's quite a heavy short sword isn't it but that grip really easy to hold it is a as you say it's a pumping it's a thrusting weapon that's right, it's a pumping, it's a thrusting weapon, isn't it? That's right, yes. It's a really deadly, carefully created piece of equipment. Yes, and it was, as you say, developed because the earlier blades used by Caesarian troops during the Republican period were longer than this one,

the short Pompeii style, and they were slightly fatter. The sword went through its own developments, and this is generally copied, it's believed, from Spanish-style swords and converted and modified to become the Pompeii-bladed sword that we know now. Keeping on the Gladius, this short sword a bit longer, David, because it seems to be one of the iconic weapons we associate with a Roman legionary. Yes.

Keeping on that for a Roman legionary for that time, how long a time span are we talking about that Roman legionaries used versions of the gladius when they're fighting in the field? Well, I think that military equipment all the time that it's functional and it's being kept in good condition it would be used for as long as possible but as fighting techniques and the enemies that rome actually faced as their weaponry did more damage, that too might have been modified by the Iron Age warriors, whether Germanic or Iron Age from Britain and Gaul. It went through these

modifications to make it lighter and it adapted the sword to be used against the people that they were coming up against. brilliant david i love that you said that with the t-34 tank rolling in the background we've got one end of ancient history and we've got modern history right next to us now keeping on the sword but we've got another piece related to that gladius in front of us now and that was what they were kept in these these scabbards because this is something we need to remember always that all of these gladius gladius is gladii being used by legionaries or whoever they wouldn't have had them out in the open all the time they would have always been in their scabbards this is an essential piece of equipment in itself a wagina a wagina it's a all-purpose protection for the blade. The internals were wooden and to protect the outside and to allow

fittings to be attached to it they had at one end at the pointed end ribbing on the sides of the scabbard and there are so many different variations and patterns. Roman military equipment tended to be made in factories, fabrica, and these government sponsored factories were all over the Roman Empire. So to look at the Romans and think that they were all identical clones of each other isn't really true because from a distance they may have looked that way but when you got closer you would see all the variations in their kit and equipment, including their sword scabbards. Now, don't forget these Roman legionaries are purchasing on HP their equipment, and we think that the variations in added decorative plates to the scabbards are probably down to the legionary himself and we do find varying tinned or silvered or brass plates attached brass being bronze to a

roman some are extremely elaborate some are very plain I think it was down to the individual. It has a metal scabbard where you put the sword in, there is a metal entry to protect the wood at the top, shaped to allow the sword to enter, and the shape at the other end is there so that you don't scrape the bottom of the scabbard, otherwise you're going to wear the wood away. They were then covered in leather, and that was your Roman gladius. It's quite interesting, the details. I mean, what kind of details, for instance, do we have on this showcase example here? You have a hunting scene embossed, you have a lion killing a stag, and you have hunting dogs chasing stags.

killing a stag and you have hunting dogs chasing stags and again they're all very elaborate very attractive particularly to the legionary and at the very base there are florets which are patterns that are common with little animals on the chape engraving they're very attractive very attractive indeed now you did mention leather right there and we've got all these weapons and we always talk about metals but how important was leather for many of these weapons for the carrying of these weapons as a material for a roman legionary in his arms well leather was everything wasn't it leather for belts leather for tents leather for saddles leather to cover sword scabbards the all-purpose use, leather for saddles, leather to cover sword scabbards. The all-purpose use of leather for covering items to protect them is very common, not just for the Roman period, for later periods as

well. Absolutely, and keeping on the swords there, because I noticed we've also got a much smaller sword or a dagger. This is another part of legionaries equipment. A pugio. It is a sidearm as you say a dagger and it's got a very very sharp entry point. Like the gladius the tips of these weapons were designed to puncture and the blade of both the Gladius and the Pugio widen quite quickly away from the tip and they're designed to cause massive hemorrhaging. A couple of inches is all that's required and having had puncture wounds over this long period of time you know exactly what it's like when you get something stuck in you and when you get one of these whether it's the Gladius or the Pugio it's absolutely agonizing and that's what it was there for. If your sword was broken or knocked from your hand in a battle and you couldn't

retrieve it then you could reach to your left-hand side and extract the pugio. Once again, they vary in design. From all over the Roman Empire, some have a much larger needle point to them. Some are widened halfway down, but they all do the same job. hardened halfway down, but they'll all do the same job. The handles, well, the tang of the Pugio travels all the way through, as it does with the Gladius, and there were decorative plates attached to them to fatten the handle and hold it all together. Once again, bone, ivory or wood was sandwiched in between to give you a nice thick hand grip to hold on to or a thicker hand grip than merely the thickness of the tang and the handles once again could be decorated

or very plain maybe down to legionary choice again personal choice david i love all that you said there and just looking at the designs if i might just just have a feel of it as well. It's, as you said, the grip, the whole design of the blade itself, of course there is regional variation, as you say, from across the empire. But it does really feel like this is just a miniature version of this, equipped for the same sort of purpose, shall we say. If he loses his sword, he can still, he still has a thrusting weapon at hand. Forgive the shooting in the background that is chalk valley but it does feel like a miniature version of the gladius yes and used at much closer quarters than the gladius you have to get quite close to use a pugio there is one instance of legionaries being sent out against an enemy just with their pugios. What that entailed or why that happened, we're not sure,

but there's certainly a carving showing legionaries going into battle with just the pugio. We can imagine maybe these are the sorts of daggers that were used that the senators smuggled inside their togas when they assassinated Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. I think they most certainly would have been. It's this type of weapon that did what it did to Gaius Ulius Caesar, Julius Caesar. But yes, it's certainly one of these weapons, small enough to be smuggled inside a toga and then taken out when needed.

So moving on then to the other key weapon of the legionaries. David, what have we got here? You have two peeler. One is a weighted peeler which we see on stelae that show the Praetorian Guard marching along. It looks very much like an ordinary pilum, but it has a lead or bronze ball attached to the shaft of the pilar underneath the head, where the down the iron of the shaft of the javelin. It then enters the stock at the top of the javelin, but just underneath that is fixed a lead ball in this case. And the impact of that would be greatly increased because of obviously the weight of the ball whereas the other javelin we have here by its side they're very very similar to look at apart from the ball perhaps the weighted peeler were used at closer range and perhaps with greater stopping power we don't actually know for certain.

So what are the debates around the Pila and the legionary? Let's go into the nitty-gritty fun detail of it all around what were used, what types? From a living history perspective and reconstructing what we're seeing from archaeological finds and from what we're seeing represented in carvings, it's quite difficult there isn't enough surviving to be absolutely 100 certain about any of it experimentation yes can tell us quite a lot the javelins themselves were used at the beginning at the opening of a confrontation, a battle, the legionaries would throw the javelin to literally slow down an enemy that was charging en masse at them because nobody, no matter how much armour they're wearing or how well they're trained, can actually stand there and receive hundreds, if not thousands, of warriors just smashing into them.

So you have to slow that charge down. Now, a peeler throw would do just that. And if you missed any of the people that were coming at you and they landed in the ground, they're a trip hazard. If they hit even better they'll puncture a shield they'll puncture the human body and once those front ranks of an enemy are brought down or slowed down close quarter fighting could begin after that because most of the tribes used this en masse bull of a charge into an enemy as part of their fighting technique. Well, the Romans didn't just stand still and wait for this to happen. They would advance against an enemy after the Pila had been thrown.

And this is actually, this is exactly what we therefore see with Boudicca, isn't it? With the attack up the hill and the Romans staying where they were. They were throwing these Pila against lightly armed Britons and then going on the offensive. Most of the stories that surround Boudicca's revolt was that very last battle. And by the way, she didn't actually realise how close she came to kicking the Romans out of Britain. It was that last battle that was the turning point. We're told that the Romans were at the end, up an incline of a hill in a narrowed valley. So the valley is getting narrower towards the top,

which meant the mass of warriors, in their usual fighting technique surged up the valley to get at the Romans but were also being squashed in by the narrowness of the valley. There were woods either side apparently and that in itself disabled them from having the room to swing the long slashing sword that tended to be the favourite weapon for the Briton. And of course, once they are a mass of people that are squashed up together, hurling javelins into a mass of people like that, you've got to hit someone you can't miss and that would create a devastating effect

on the front ranks the rear ranks couldn't advance but the romans could and these short stabbing gladiuses licking in and out from behind the shield the scutum would have been a slaughter an absolute slaughter. Is that why, when we're looking at these weapons, we need to realise how they wouldn't have been used, shall we say, separately, they would have been used by the Romans in a battle such as Boudicca's, they would have been used together, so the Pelan first and then the Gladius afterwards, to make sure that these weapons were used to the greatest infamous deadly effect?

Yes, you've hit the nail on the head there. The Roman army was so highly trained and in a set piece battle with ground that they chose, they were almost unbeatable. But if you took them out of that context, for example, the Varus disaster, when in 9 AD they lost three complete legions in the Teutoburg forest, string them out, string a legion out in a wood where they can't form up, where they can't make the testudo or the cuneum, the wedge, where they can't function as they had been trained, and they become a lot less invulnerable at that point, which is why and how, over three days, three legions were lost.

Legions 17, 18 and 19. And their eagles were gone, captured by the Germanic tribes. It was a very carefully thought out plan by the Germans and the weather was against them. Apparently it rained and it just didn't stop for the three days and they were just wiped out. The Germanic tribes were successful, they won the day but put them out in open ground chosen by a good Roman general

and the manoeuvres can all be locked into place. but put them out in open ground, chosen by a good Roman general, and the manoeuvres can all be locked into place, these weapons are absolutely lethal used in that context. And you mentioned the wedge there and, of course, the testudo. When we think of those formations, did they really best suit having that thinly bladed gladius emerging out from behind the scutum shields to thrust that whole idea yes with regards to the the very famous testudo there are only a couple of representations of it in stellite and its actual use. The written record doesn't really give us much of a clue either. What did they use it for?

The stelli show the testudo in use up against a wall of a hill fort, for example, or the wall of a town. And once it had got there, what do you do with it? Where do you go? There's no battering ram inside, so it's pointless taking it up to a gate to batter that down. We just don't know enough.

We don't know its actual use. Certainly it might get a body of men close to a fortification defended by their shields very well, in fact, but when you've got them there, what do they do? Do they suddenly disperse? I've seen in films, dare I say, a running testudo. In one very, very good film, by the way. Probably not.

It's a very hard formation to keep when you're actually walking it and you only need one person to trip or fall or tread on somebody's heels and everybody inside that testudo is going to fall over so when you see a running testudo tongue in cheek perhaps it is quite interesting to imagine roman soldiers falling over like dominoes if that happened. Yes, that's exactly what would have happened. What caused the anarchy? How did medieval migrants shape the language I'm speaking right now? Who won the Hundred Years' War?

Could England's lost patron saint be buried under a tennis court in Suffolk? How did England's last medieval king end up under a car park? And were the Dark Ages really all that dark? I'm Dr Kat Jarman. And I'm Matt Lewis. On Gone Medieval, we'll uncover the most exciting and unexpected stories about the Middle Ages, hearing from the best and brightest minds. We will disentangle fact from fiction, bring you the latest discoveries, and reveal how the so-called Dark Ages laid the foundations for

much of the world we're living in today. Subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. okay we're going to go back to these javins these peter one more time because there's one other aspect i'd love myth bust maybe or just to talk a bit more about and the debate surrounding it and these are the bendy tips the barbs and the supposed bendy tips. David what's the story behind this and the possible debate surrounding it? Well it's long been thought that the long iron shaft of the peeler was softened in the middle it has a diamond shaped tip that will puncture a shield. Once it's gone through the shield, we've tried it, they're quite difficult to pull out. So

if you're an Iron Age warrior, you've got a javelin in your shield, you're very lucky that it hasn't travelled all the way through and punctured you as well but we'll say it's just stuck in your shield. Dislodging it would mean you'd have to put your shield on the ground, put your foot on it and try and pull the javelin out so that you could regain the use of your shield which leaves you very exposed particularly if you're in a group of hundreds if not thousands who are running along everybody's going to run into you so it's written that the iron age warriors in some of the battles with a javelin or two stuck in their shields would discard them that would be the ideal get the shields away from them they're even easier to

kill at that point but if it got stuck in we're told that the middle of this javelin tip the iron tip was of a softer iron than the top and the bottom of it so the sheer weight of the handle would cause the javelin after penetration to bend making it doubly difficult to get out of a shield or even a person come to that well from practical experience it doesn't always work in fact it doesn't work very well at all. We're also told that they're attached with wooden pins. The actual tang of the iron part of the javelin is attached to the wooden handle with pins made of wood that go all the way through. And on impact, it breaks the wooden pins, making the tip almost useless. It's just floppy, unusable.

But once again, from practical use, that's never actually happened when we've experimented with them. Because the top of the javelin has a collar around it, and there are several virtually complete javelins that have been found, There are several virtually complete javelins that have been found, and the collar is actually held on with little iron wedges to make it extremely firm. So how on earth is that meant to just flop around? Sometimes the writing doesn't match up to the practicality that we experiment with. And sadly, and I have the greatest respect for every archaeologist out there,

no two of them ever seem to agree on the same thing. And they then enter the debates over it. But yes, more research needs to be done in experimental archaeology. Apart from recreating wonderful buildings from roundhouses to villas, every piece of equipment needs to be thoroughly tested and tested to destruction if need be, so that we get a greater understanding of what we're reading and what we're finding to see if it actually does work. Brilliant.

That experimental archaeology, whether it's Polynesian exploration, Polynesian navigation, or whether it's Roman weaponry and testing it out. Also, that hands-on, that physical use of these objects, the creating of objects, it must be such a joy, especially for you and your team in the Legio II Augusta, to be able to do that, to test out these objects and to see possibly how they were used or how they could have been used? Well, I've got a good example. Some years ago, we recreated the famous Dura Europa shield,

which was a complete Roman shield found at the Roman town of Dura Europa. Incredible site, yeah. Yes, it was in one of the tunnels underneath that collapsed when they were trying to get into the town from outside and in recreating it the Roman scutum has a single handle hold in the middle of the shield protected on the outside your hands protected by the shield boss and we've recreated several of these shields we see them represented just about everywhere where you see Roman soldiers and when you grab hold of that handle no matter how accurately you make that shield if you kick the bottom of it it tips out if you

hit the top of it it tips in it's very very hard to control And we took this to an eminent lady at Exeter University, Valerie Maxfield, and we said to her, what are we doing wrong? We've recreated this. It doesn't feel right. They would have had to have had wrists like tree stumps, I remember saying it, to have held this. And she just looked at us with a smile and said, yes, that's exactly what they did have. These men were trained 24-7, 365 days a year. They were different to the way we are physically today. So we're not Romans. We're not 2000 years old. And there will always be that part of the jigsaw

missing that we aren't built like them, we haven't trained like them. We're taking their equipment and saying, I can't hold on to this, it twists in my hand, or this hurts. I doubt you would have heard a real Roman soldier saying that. So yes, we can experiment up to a point, but to allow for the fact that we are 21st century people. But it's still an absolutely fascinating subject to get deeply into, whether you're Saxon, Viking, Norman, Roman, seeing how it all works or trying to get it to work as we understand it is an absolute joy well that's wonderful to hear david and just before we wrap it all up i'd love to ask about this hat which you brought along too that i've seen you wearing around the festival so far just to try and

describe it the thing that came to my mind instantly is i watched the smurfs when i was younger and i remember those hats but what is this cap that we've got here it's a copy of a Phrygian cap and a Phrygian cap can best be described as it has a pointy top to it that points forward we're not a hundred percent certain whether they were felt or a type of felting or whether they were material it's a bit like a modern army forage cap and these phrygian caps as they're called were they worn under a helmet is it part of a helmet lining because so many of the tops rather than stick out are flatten flattened. And we've asked the question, is this part of your helmet lining? Would you have worn it under your helmet or not? Or was your helmet padded?

From my best knowledge, fragments of horsehair and linen have been found trapped behind rivets in some Roman helmet finds. So that is beginning to indicate that it had some sort of liner in it or did they wear a Phrygian cap underneath their legionary helmet sad thing is again we don't know for certain now David just also before we wrap up I'm going to keep asking more questions your team at Roman arms and armour. Your team at Chalk Valley, I saw a demonstration yesterday looking at the Roman ditches and the use of certain Roman defences. And one of the things I saw them using, these incredible,

wow, these horrible ancient objects, the caltrops, those little spikes in the ground. I notice you've got a little satchel behind you, but I'm just trying to piece two and two together and correct me if I'm wrong, but would these legionaries, along with the Scutum, the Gladius, the Pugio, the Pila, would they have also had in their satchel, would that be where they had their caltrops, little devices like that, or would they have been elsewhere? What do we know about these little deadly devices that would have been with a legion? being with a legion right they probably would have been in the baggage train and or the smallest number as we know in the roman army was eight a contubernium a tent party every eight men were issued with a leather tent and every eight men were issued with a mule to carry some of the

heavier implements such as the spades and the mattocks etc now whether you were going to sprinkle caltrops these nasty points that you stick in the grass before a battle or outside of a camp in hostile territory once again we don't really know but certainly they would have been carried around in baskets or some form of container and brought out when needed and then sprinkled. And we've talked about experimental archaeology. I can vouch for the fact that the caltrops work beautifully. One of our members is now at home. He's missing the weekend because after showing the member of public and explaining the cow drop he put it on the ground behind him continued talking and then stepped back on it and he ended up going to hospital no it's not a laughing matter i know but there's a really practical piece of experimental archaeology standing on your own

cowl trop but he's all okay now so we can talk about it all good all good so we've got that all covered yes and um last but certainly not least you have got one other incredible piece of equipment in your camp here at chalk valley we've done some work on it before in a previous history hit documentary too and this is one of the artillery devices that we would have seen in these Roman legions. What are these artillery pieces? Well, there were two forms of them, basic forms of them.

One is a bolt firing machine and they ranged in size from handheld, almost like a large crossbow, then they were put on stands as they got larger and larger. We're told also that for sieges such as Masada, the artillery was brought prefabricated and assembled because when you look at the stone balls that were shot up to the top of Masada, they're bigger than footballs,

and the mathematics involved in the construction of those machines will only allow a certain size of machine to discharge either a bolt or a stone of a certain size. So the machines that hurled larger-than-football stones to the top of Masada must have been very large machines indeed, whereas the field pieces, we're told 60 per legion, were lighter, could be moved around on small carts pulled by mules, and they would either fire iron-tipped bolts

or stones the size of a tennis ball. And if you can imagine, once again, shooting a stone ball into the massed ranks of an enemy, it would have been devastating. Absolutely, I can imagine. And actually, that last thing has made me ask one more piece of equipment that I'd like to ask about, because it's sometimes often overlooked. Now, the sling, the sling at all and slingshot. We see slingshot examples from various sieges in Roman times. Did a legionary have a sling at all?

sieges in Roman times. Did a legionary have a sling at all? Yes. Now, every Roman legionary, when he joined up, was taught to swim if he couldn't swim. He was taught to ride a horse. He was also taught to use a bow and a sling and the sword and the javelin and these are all put together his skills were completely across the board when it came to weaponry now we know they had artillery crews we know they had a veterinary corps they had an engineering corps although every legionary was taught to use those weapons, we do find specialist units in the Roman army. For example, it was considered that the greatest slingers at the time came from the Balearic Islands. So once the Spanish had been conquered and the islands had been conquered, these were incorporated and brought into the Roman army. The Romans accepted that they were not fantastic cavalrymen. So when they came up against Gaulish cavalry that was quite devastating,

they actually, once conquered, adopted them and brought them into the army. Syrian archers were the best in the world. Once again, they were incorporated into the Roman army. So within a legion, you would find archers, slingers and cavalrymen from all over the Roman Empire. But every legionary also was taught to use those weapons. was taught to use those weapons and how that was used or utilised we don't really know. The other thing being of course it was such a cosmopolitan army by the time the Romans got to Britain I think it would be fairer to say it wasn't the Roman army it was the army of Rome, because in that unit you could be stood next to somebody from Spain or Gaul. From just about anywhere in the empire, those that had become a conquered people and

Roman citizens to boot could become Roman legionaries. If they weren't Roman citizens, If they weren't Roman citizens, they could become auxiliaries, whose reward at the end of 25 years' service was a grant of Roman citizenship. So they weren't really taught to use a spear? The cavalry used a hasta, which is a long spear from the saddle. Cavalry also used a longer sword than the legionaries, a spatha, because they needed the extra length from having to use it from the back of a horse. One of the things just by the by I find very odd that to our modern minds a stirrup on a saddle is just so sensible and easy to use

yet the Roman cavalry didn't have stirrups. And I don't know, it just doesn't seem right somehow we've recreated Roman saddles and there are some groups out there that are absolutely wonderful at riding Roman but why they never ended up with a stirrup I find very puzzling but yes a very very cosmopolitan, highly trained, highly efficient army. But on top of that, you can also look on the other side of it. Some Roman soldiers, and we have this from the written record, joined the Roman army and didn't fight anyone at all in their whole 25-year service. They were used to keep the borders of the roman empire free from the barbarian

hordes outside and by that anybody who wasn't a roman citizen the romans considered a barbarian david i could ask questions about this all day about the legionary equipment about auxiliaries and so much more but to wrap it all, talk to me a bit about your organisation, your incredible team, Legio 2 Augusta. The group itself started from a weekend event that was advertised by Winchester City Council. Many years ago, I won't say how many, but it was many years ago, Winchester City Council had got hold of some stage costumes

from London and advertised in the local paper for volunteers to come along and become Roman soldiers for the weekend at Danebury Hill Fort and that's basically how it started although the shields were fiberglass and blew inside out with the wind the helmets were fiberglass the armor was pressed cardboard it enthused all of us there were 12 of us at the time to want to do it properly if that's the right word and we went away with the idea of creating a reenactment or living history group based on the Roman period. And over the years, and it's taken a long time because for many, many years, reenactment, living history, has always been a bit of a grey area that causes people to cock their eyebrow and think,

hmm, these people that go out at weekends and dress up and play soldiers. Well, that may have been the case in the beginning but now oh it's so different now the research that goes into the equipment the period that you're representing it's stitch perfect button perfect you're trying so hard to get it as near to the original as possible it isn't always possible because some things just aren't available to us in this modern 21st century and to try and give an impression to the public to children what it might have been like to have been a Roman soldier or a Roman civilian or a gladiator 2,000 years ago and I firmly believe we are only just scratching the surface with everything we do in fact living history presentation whatever period you represent is now in many areas taken seriously by the academic world

who see what we do not as fun and games at weekend and a beer in the evening and bashing one another with iron swords. There's an immense amount of research and dedication that goes into trying to recreate life, whether it was 200, 400 or 2000 years ago and it's just a labor of love and one day please one day could somebody in this country in the UK do an archaeological theme park create one that encompasses all those periods of history so that we could show the public, recreate the villas, the forts. It happens on the continent, they're way ahead of us

but there seems to be apathy towards recreating any buildings apart from little small things around the country but nothing on any large scale. And can you imagine going to an archaeological theme park and visiting a Roman town with working baths, a quayside with the boats? It's not just the army, a Roman fort though, a villa. Let's see a villa properly reconstructed. Again, they do it on the continent, but over here, one day. David, one day indeed. And those would be pretty cool, but I think everyone would be dying just to see the inside of a Hellenic temple created.

Or, of course, forming 128 man-strong Macedonian phalanx. That would be the key draw, I think, my friend. This has been an incredible chat, David. Thank you so much for taking the time out. It's been a pleasure. Any time at all. Any time at all. We'll see you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton.

Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.