Segmentata vs. Falx

[A_Volpe]

I agree that the Legend of the Falx has become a huge thing in the last couple of years.

It appears to be just another weapon type that was used, and if one cares to notice, for a -short- period of time, and if one
is going to split hairs about it, it was seemingly only used by a single people in a specific area during a particular battle.
Not exactly legendary stuff, but, sometimes things just run off on there own. Like the whole Spartan legend, etc.

Anyway, As has been mentioned, Roman metal body armor was still in use well into the 4th century. The plate armor, segmentata, was still one of the many types a Roman could be wearing.

I still don't understand this notion to split-hairs and argue incessantly about "how effective was the armor". If you're standing in the middle of a battlefield daring someone to hack at you with a sharp weapon (and intending to actually kill you) because you have the Best Armor EVER and you Must Prove It…..Sorry that's a great way of getting killed - And then, how many surviving literary references and evidence tells us anything like that happened? IIRC, There Are None.

Also, just because the weapon is depicted in later sculptures and mentioned by other writers later one (i.e. that 'body guard' carrying falx reference), doesn't mean the weapon necessarily retained it's horrific legendary status - It could also have been used as a Representational or "Traditional" arms of those particular Dacians. It'd be like having a pair of Samurai you hired as part of your entourage. Would you equip them with American 1860's pattern Cavalry sabers, or with the weapon that would easily identify them of their original country with a Katana?

All of that said, I'm not disputing the Intimidation factor of the Falx or it's potential in combat. Quite the opposite. I know the people involved with the Leg XX Maryland Falx vs Scutum thing, and I've seen and even handled that very Falx, and damn that sends shivers up my spine.

Targeting specific areas like smashing the shield apart with a Falx, or thinking about aiming for the leather straps on Segmentata I think is a misleading approach. Like with my earlier comment, no one is going to wait to have you try and target somewhere on their body in the thick of a fight. Smashing a shield is a viable tactic, but it's not the only trick in the bag - and may not always be the "best" one to use, either. We have this problem today when we've had these last 20-30 years of fantastic and interesting reconstructive and speculative work done on Roman period weapons, armor, and tactics, yet the problem is so little is actually based in fact, much of it is just speculative. But it ends up in a book that is beloved and lauded by 'the experts' if not 'the rest of us' enthusiasts, etc, and those speculative ideas themselves over time become "fact" that are just accepted by some and sometimes it seems to spiral out of control or out of context.