New discovery: loricas segmentatas Leon, Spain

[starman2012]

That's indeed what I think but alas it's not proven to have been the case. If the segmentata was so difficult to maintain that how can we consider it to have survived for a century as standard issue?

It helped that much of that period was relatively placid, and the State had more money. Not that repair was the main reason for replacement; I think a lot of old armor was just lost and they couldn't afford to replace it unless it was something cheaper like scale or mail. It wasn't just body armor btw, around mid third century some men wore a coif instead of a helmet. I don't see why they'd do that except to save a few denarii. :wink:

I seriously consider the theory that in some parts of the empire they continued to make this sort of armour.

Or maybe it just survived longer in some of the less tumultuous places and was eventually stowed as it aged.