01-27-2015, 03:37 PM
What period are you interested in? It appears that citizens provided their own gear in the early republic, and the state increasingly provided gear as time went on. The vindolanda tablets provide some fragmentary detail on how supplies would have been provided to garrisoned soldiers. It seems that in the principate soldiers had to pay off their gear, but they had incentive to keep it in good order to sell it back. Note that many Roman helmets have more than one name engraved on them, indicating multiple successive owners.
