How Did it All Work???

[Titus Manlius Verus]

Some friends of mine were sitting around having an argument about the issuing of Roman armor. When a recruit signed up to the legions, did the legion decide what armor he recieved? Did he have a choice? Or did he obtain it from a private source (i.e a retired legionaire-if they were allowed to keep their equipment)? I would love to hear opinions. Cheers. 8)

[M. Val. Naso]

In the principate and dominate eras, the state funded equipment factories, from which they distributed out the equipment. I don't know for republican era. Also, in the dominate, soldiers, especially limitanei ones would buy provate things a lot, and maybe incorporate the areas culture into their equipment.

Also, IIRC, legionnaires kept their equipment, and later the state could use them as "gendarmes".

[Flavivs Aetivs]

In the principate and dominate eras, the state funded equipment factories, from which they distributed out the equipment. I don't know for republican era. Also, in the dominate, soldiers, especially limitanei ones would buy provate things a lot, and maybe incorporate the areas culture into their equipment.

Also, IIRC, legionnaires kept their equipment, and later the state could use them as "gendarmes".

Actually, the Legions were supplied by Private Industries paid by the state until Diocletian and Constantine began opening state facilities called Fabricae, which supplie dthe 4th and 5th century armies.

In the Republic you bought your own equipment as far as I know.

[Robert Vermaat]

In the principate and dominate eras, the state funded equipment factories, from which they distributed out the equipment. I don't know for republican era. Also, in the dominate, soldiers, especially limitanei ones would buy provate things a lot, and maybe incorporate the areas culture into their equipment.
Also, IIRC, legionnaires kept their equipment, and later the state could use them as "gendarmes".

There is conflicting evidence about who owned the equipment after retirement. One would say that soldiers could own (parts of) the equipment and sell them later, or take them home, but some sources seem to refer to storing it for them.
Woods, David (1993): The ownership and disposal of military equipment in the Late Roman army, in: Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 4, pp. 55-65.

I have not seen any differences in ownership between limitanei and comitatenses, but my guess would be that the latter owned more because they were paid better.
Private ownership of weapons was forbidden by law, and I think that also went for veterans, if not employed in a (para-)military role. Veterans were not 'as a rule' used as police.

[Titus Manlius Verus]

Excellent. But let's say that I'm a freshly-recruited munifex who has been posted with a legion along the Euphrates. Because of my location I will be facing the Parthians who heavily rely on missile attacks. Would I have been able to ask for lorica squamata as opposed to hamata (1st century legionnaires did wear squamata, correct? My friend argued that they didn't)?

[Robert Vermaat]

Excellent. But let's say that I'm a freshly-recruited munifex who has been posted with a legion along the Euphrates. Because of my location I will be facing the Parthians who heavily rely on missile attacks. Would I have been able to ask for lorica squamata as opposed to hamata (1st century legionnaires did wear squamata, correct? My friend argued that they didn't)?

My guess is you would wear what was available. Normally a segmentata, but a hamata or a squamata would also be possible. We are talking about the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, right?

[M. Val. Naso]

Robert: These weapon-prohibition laws never worked. In Hungary, after the Dózsa-revolution in 1514, they passed a prohibition. Still, hajdús, otherwise simple cattle-herders became the prime gunpowder/rifle infantry against the Ottomans a few decades later. I know this is just a simple example from a thousand years later, but still, you get me.

[Nathan Ross]

As I understand it (vaguely), the situation was that soldiers under the Republic bought their own equipment. After Marius the state supplied arms and armour (presumably on contract from private armouries), and the soldiers had the cost deducted from their pay. In the late republic new legions were often equipped out of the funds of their commanders. Retiring veterans did keep their arms, however - a group of veterans settled in Campania were re-raised by Octavian and requested permission to go home 'in order to arm themselves, saying that they could not perform their duty with other arms than their own' (Appian, Civil Wars, III,42) - they already had their swords with them, so this probably refers to armour, shields and other weapons.

Under the Principate, I believe that most arms and armour were produced by the legions themselves, in their own fabricae, or by private contractors as before, and issued to recruits on enlistment possibly with deductions from pay. This latter would have meant that the troops owned their own equipment, which I'm not sure about - but it's probable that wealthy veteran soldiers could have bought themselves better kit if they wanted. On discharge I would imagine that most of this was sold back to the legion armoury - a segmentata and scutum aren't much use if you're ploughing (or supervising slaves ploughing...)

I recall reading somewhere (Bishop & Coulston?) that finds of segmentata pieces are very rare in the eastern provinces, so it would seem that mail predominated there for at least the 1st and 2nd centuries. Scale was worn by legionaries though - it appears on the Adamklissi metopes.

The state fabricae of the Dominate took arms production and supply out of the hands of the legions and their commanders and centralised it. Quite possibly this equipment was then issued to the soldiers without their having to pay for it, and handed in on discharge. As Robert says, it was illegal for private citizens to carry arms, but with the increasing intermingling of military and civilian life in the later empire, there would have been plenty of weapons about anyway, in the hands of those authorised to bear them.

[john m roberts]

When was private ownership forbidden by law? In the Republic it was expected that a citizen would own weapons if not a full panoply. During the early Principate everyone seemed to have at least a sword, though towns had laws against open carry. One of Petronius's characters gets into trouble carrying a sword in town. Was it during the Dominate? If so, how did they distinguish between a spear meant for war and a hunting spear? Likewise the bow and arrows? During colonial days in Kenya, to suppress tribal warfare, the British government could not forbid spears, which the people needed to defend their livestock from predators, but they outlawed shields (other than small shields for dancing) which had only warlike application.

[Nathan Ross]

When was private ownership forbidden by law?

There's a law in the Theodosian Code (CTh.15.15.0. Quod armorum usus interdictus est) dated 5th October 364 stating that "Absolutely no one is granted the ability to wield arms of any description whatsoever without our knowledge and consent"

Like most things in the Code, this was probably a reiteration of previous legislation. This essay suggests that the law might actually relate to unauthorised arms shipments (movendorum) - alternatively, it might mean that a citizen could keep a weapon in his house, but not use it in public.

However, a ruling from the Institutiones of Aelius Marcianus (early 3rd C AD) preserved in the Justinian Code (48.6.1) says that "Whoever has collected arms in his home or fields or in his villa, unless for the purpose of hunting or for making a journey by land or by sea, will be found liable under the Lex Julia concerning public violence." So hunting weapons appear to be given special dispensation.

Either way, a law of Valentinian III (Nov.Val. IX, AD440) repealed the earlier ruling: "By this edict we urge one and all, with confidence in the strength of Rome and with the courage with which one’s own ought to be defended, to use... whatever arms they can against the enemy, preserving public discipline and the dignity attending their station; and to protect, in faithful concert and with a united front, our provinces and their own fortunes."

This was apparently in response to barbarian attacks on the provinces. Anyway, it seems certain that neither law relates to the earlier (Republican and after) custom of not bearing arms within the pomerium - which, as we discussed here before, was honoured more in the breach!).

[Sean Manning]

Last time we discussed this, I think we concluded that there is no evidence for an imperial Roman law against owning or carrying arms. Stockpiling weapons was illegal, and bearing arms for the purpose of illicit violence was illegal under the lex Iulia de vi publico, but owning suitable weapons for hunting or traveling was legal, and so was carrying them in town. While the sort of law which got into the Corpus Iuris Civilis seems to have had only a vague connection to practice, the evidence seems to suggest that a respectable veteran would have been able to keep his kit if he had been allowed to keep it when he retired (and hadn't just sold it to buy another ox for his new farm ... soldiers selling their arms when the war ends is a very common practice).

The Roman attitude seems rather more like Canadian common law than the current American approach.

[Crispvs]

I suspect that the situation at any time would have varied from place to place. If veterans retired close to their former fort/fortress, there might be little need to retain their weapons, as there was a substantial body of armed and equipped men nearby already. In such a situation it may have been normal practice to sell equipment back to the army. A veteran being called back into service in an emergency who lived by his old fort could presumably be equipped out of the unit's own stores. Certainly there was a mechanism for a unit buying back equipment of deceased soldiers (who clearly were held to own their own equipment, hence the ownership inscriptions on many surviving pieces), as a surviving letter dating to the mid second century AD, quoted by Bishop and Coulston, records the mother of a deceased soldier receiving money for his equipment and possibly an eighth share of a contabernium tent.
Certainly a practice of men retaining their equipment when they left the army would have led to a huge amount of equipment building up in civilian settlements, which would seem unlikely to be desirable.

The situation for men returning to their places of origin may have been different. It might also have been different in places which had recently been conquered, where retiring veterans might need to be able to defend their new colonies against attack.

It might also be worth pointing out with regard to 'Octavian' recruiting Caesar's vererans, who were able to go home to collect their equipment, this was before the development of a regular standing army with permanent bases and administration.

Crispvs

[Nathan Ross]

Last time we discussed this, I think we concluded that there is no evidence for an imperial Roman law against owning or carrying arms... the sort of law which got into the Corpus Iuris Civilis seems to have had only a vague connection to practice

I think the previous discussion confined itself to practice under the republic and principiate, and as you say no actual laws came to light...

However, it does seem that things were tightened up in later centuries, perhaps with limited effect - the ruling from the Theodosian Code I quoted above has the feel of piqued imperial foot-stamping, presumably after many years of legalistic quibbling about what sort of weapon somebody was allowed to carry where! The Marcianus quote shows that, a century beforehand, travellers and hunters were already exempt from whatever ruling was in place at the time.

[Titus Manlius Verus]

When was private ownership forbidden by law? In the Republic it was expected that a citizen would own weapons if not a full panoply.

I believe that this carried over into the principate as well. Wouldn't that mean that a veteran could lend his son his own equipment in order to save the boy money when he followed his father's footsteps into the legion?