Weaponry

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Information: Roman weaponry was one of the most advanced equipment of the world and this had a big role of its rise. Soldiers looked like Greek soldiers because the Romans were impressed how the Greek soldiers looked like and they wanted to improve what they have  invented. The armor was called lorica segmentata it consisted many iron plates layered upon before the other. Other than men armor there was another weapon, it was the artillery. It was used for long range attacks and it was very affective where the soldiers were not able to reach. Weapons: There were plenty different weapons for soldiers, but an ordinary soldier was wearing a helmet (cassis), a sword that is 18-24 in. long (gladius), medium lengths throwing spear (pilium), shield (scutum), red battle cloak, armor, and sandals. The helmet was made out of bronze and it came in different shapes for different troops. The sword was an advantage in war because it was smaller than a normal sword so it was light and easy to swing and this did not take much energy to fight with it. The spear was made out of ordinary metal and wood but it was very effective in the war because when the enemy tried to block you with his sword your spear could just go through his shield and kill him in a fast way. The shield was bigger than the other shield that other empires used; it was 30 in. wide and 40 in. tall. The cloak had a little importance in war, it was made just to keep the soldiers warm and scare the enemy a little. The sandals were everything in the battle because where ever the soldiers go to fight, they will have the same sandals so they were rugged and they were easy to fix. The artillery had four different types, they were, Scorpio, ballista, catapult, and onager. The Scorpio was like a giant arrow that was launching a giant arrow at the walls or gates of the enemy. Bastilla was like the catapult it was launching big rocks to the enemy and you were launching these rocks by pulling a string. The onager was a smaller version of ballista and it launched mid-sized rocks. The catapult was the most famous of all because it was the biggest and it was easier to aim. Tactics: The main tactic was to get the higher ground but if that did not work they were trying four other tactics. The reason that they wanted the high ground was because they could have speed when attacking and they had the advantage while firing arrows. The other tactics were shield to shield, battle readiness, starvation and training. In shield to shield the soldiers were forming a rectangle putting their shield above their head or next to their body and walk like to the base of the enemy and attack. It did not matter if the enemy fired arrows at them. Battle readiness was a really good tactic because it allowed the soldiers to fight for only 15 minutes.

sources:

http://www.richeast.org/htwm/Greeks/Romans/weapons/weapons.html http://www.roman-empire.net/army/army.html [|www.medieval-weaponry.co.uk] ancient rome and greece pp.131 moulton

summary sentence: the sum of all these information is that rome had the biggest army of its time and it also had more weapon then any other empire at the same time.