Forging the blade of an average gladius took about 30 hours of manual labor. From here, it would still need a handle and scabbard to protect it from rust and make it comfortable to wield, which, depending on the quality, could require another 30 hours. Once the sword is done, another 40 hours would be needed for a skilled artisan to create the 2 pila (javelins) that each legionary would carry into battle, to be hurled at the enemy as deadly projectiles.
But even these production times pale in comparison to body armor. The remains of Roman chainmail found across the empire has allowed us to reconstruct their fabrication process. They required 2 different types of rings.
The first, plain solid rings, were created by inserting and punching wrought iron sheets into a die. Two different sets of punches were used to cut the inner and outer diameters of the rings. The second type of ring was riveted, in order to attach onto the solid rings.
These were made by spinning iron wires into a coil and then cutting them into individual rings. Their ends would then be flattened and a hole was punched through, into which a rivet would later be inserted to attach each riveted ring to 4 solid ones. The diameter of these rings had a direct correlation to the armor’s performance, weight, and price.
Experts have calculated that a set of chainmail made up of 6mm rings would require the manual fabrication of over 42,588 riveted and 127,764 solid rings (170,353 in total)… In terms of production time, if we assume each ring takes about 1 minute and 4 minutes to create, then over 4,813 hours (2,129 hours + 2,684 hours) would be needed to create the entire piece of body armor, that's the equivalent of 1 person working 8 hours a day, every day for 1. 8 years. More impressively, the smallest rings were found to be just 3 mm in diameter, which would further increase these numbers… Other less time consuming armor included the Lorica Segmentata and Lorica Squamata, the segmented and scale body armor.
The former was the only one invented by the Romans. It was quick and cheap to manufacture but required specific tools to do so, and was quite difficult to repair. Scale armor was also quick to produce, as it would only take a couple hours to teach an unskilled worker how to make scales.
But the armor's drawbacks were its heavy weight, high material cost, and long repair time… Alongside weapons and body armor, let's not forget the time, cost, and resources still needed to create padded clothing (subarmalis), greaves, helmets, daggers, the list goes on… So now let’s take a look at how the Roman empire was able to outfit every soldier of its over 200,000 strong army spread across thousands of kilometers. Equipping a Roman soldier really started with the primary industries. Raw resources like Iron, leather, flax (linen), wood, copper, bronze (tin), and brass (zinc) were all fundamental materials present in the equipment of every legionary, and so had to be extracted, gathered, and transported from their respective industries in tons, often from various geographical areas… A glimpse of the true scale of Roman logistics was witnessed at the Roman camp of Inchtuthil.
When its local garrison had to relocate and abandon its position, 12 tons of scrap iron were buried there, simply because they couldn’t carry it with them… Across the centuries, thousands of tons of raw resources were continuously extracted, transported, and stored at crucial legionary bases and civilian settlements, where they would be further processed by secondary industries, like skilled weavers, blacksmiths, armorers, and fletchers. The Roman Empire always operated on a rather chaotic and hybrid production system centered around both civilian and military workshops, working under loose state supervision… Vegetius and a passage from Justinian’s Digest strongly emphasize that an army should always try to be as self-sufficient as possible in terms of production of equipment and usage of resources, and have a pool of experts capable of performing such tasks. Thus, every legionary and auxiliary fort would be outfitted with fabricae, or workshops, within its walls, tasked with the production and assembly of equipment and armor.
Several of these buildings have been identified in the forts of Britannia and Germania, having access to big water tanks connected to their forts’ water systems, and with adjacent rooms filled with enough raw materials, anvils, molds, crucibles, and specialized tools they would need. Along with heavy duty ovens for metal working, there was almost nothing a Roman fort couldn't produce in house! The workforce of the fabricae consisted of regular rank and file soldiers from their unit, along with some freedmen and slaves, who would perform some menial and unskilled labour, leaving the most complex and dangerous stages of production to the specialists, as there was always a neverending risk of fires breaking out.
. . A papyrus recording two days of activity from a fabrica belonging to the 2nd Traiana Fortis legion in Egypt lists their progress in creating different pieces of equipment, which included swords, shields, bows, and even parts of catapults… This fabrica had between 1-2 hundred people working in it every day, while a document from fort Vindolanda lists a workforce of 343.
Overall command of these military workshops and their expert craftsmen fell to the “optio fabricae” and his staff of around 60 principales and immunes, known as “fabri”, all of whom were answerable to the “Praefectus castrorum”, the camp prefect responsible for coordinating the production efforts and managing the armories, known as “armamentaria”. Today, Roman forts and their workshops are still being discovered, which makes Roman history that much more fascinating and relevant! For example, spy satellite images from the time of the Cold War were recently declassified, revealing hundreds of undiscovered Roman forts in Syria and Iraq… I'm reading all this from this video’s sponsor, Ground News, a platform I use to get a well-rounded view of current events and see through misleading media narratives.
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I encourage you to check it out. This colossal burden and expense of production was why all equipment was instead repaired, reused, and recycled as much as possible to avoid the far more tedious and expensive process of crafting new ones. This was the primary reason why there was never at any point in Rome’s history a single standardized armor or uniform within any unit, and there were always soldiers who wore old and out of fashion pieces of armor, so long as they were well maintained and served their purpose.
The same went for artillery pieces, as Metal frames from scorpios excavated at the battlefield of Cremona were found to be more than 20 years old when they were still in service. And remains of fabricae in Haltern, Exeter and Leon were all well stocked with various kinds of repair tools. When equipment got so worn or damaged that it could no longer be repaired, the Romans still had a use for it.
Several forts (Newstead) were found to have large recycling industries and pits filled with a wide array of scrap metal. Here, things like broken swords and fragments of chainmail would all be melted down to forge new items, like nails for Roman boots or digging tools… These measures ensured that Roman forts were never overly dependent on supplies of raw materials, and were more self-sufficient when operating on foreign territory. Not to mention the colossal expense of maintaining the army in times of peace would be greatly alleviated, as the need for large shipments would be kept at a minimum.
But just outside the formidable walls of these Imperial outposts was a completely different category of workshops. . .
Working at their own pace and for their own profit, civilian craftsmen were often able to produce lavishly decorated equipment of even higher quality than the crude military workshops. And given that despite their efforts, military production was often never enough to satisfy the needs of the army, the civilian private sector was always ready to alleviate their burdens in exchange for some profit from the imperial treasury. After all, civilians had access to a larger network of highly specialized craftsmen who were capable of producing anything from low quality gear for poor soldiers to high end luxurious equipment for the wealthiest of officers.
But before enlisting the civilians, The Imperial authority was careful to put strict laws in place, specifically this one (Lex Iulia de Vi Pública from around 17 B. C. ) that governed all civilian production of military equipment, stating that it must only be sold to army personnel, and its exportation to other states was strictly forbidden.
Even legionary and auxiliary veterans had to return their weapons after discharge, and losing a weapon while not in combat was a capital offense. With these strict laws firmly in place, the civilian workforce was often employed to help ease the burden of equipping the army. This practice was very common throughout Roman history, which was filled to the brim with unexpected civil wars and barbarian incursions, requiring the rapid production of weapons and armor.
During the Year of the Four Emperors, for example, Vespasian had to mobilize all citizens and industries within entire cities in the east to quickly equip his army for civil war. We can only imagine how frantic it would have been to work around the clock for weeks, often under limited time, materials, and worker experience. As a result, these hasty production practices yielded very rough and poor quality products.
Many Late Republican helmets, for example, were found with off-centered plume knobs, no cheek guards, and no final polishing… To ensure the best possible craftsmanship, the army had quality standards for their equipment, as a report from the fort of Carlisle mentions the words “. . swords according to the legislation.
. ” and Cassius Dio writes about how jewish smiths would purposely craft swords of lower quality so that they would be rejected by the Romans, and instead kept and used to equip themselves for a jewish uprising… Another document from Southern Gaul mentions centurion Marcus Ulpius Avitus from the IIIrd Augusta legion being stationed at a civilian facility to supervise the production of armor by local artisans. In the grand scheme of things, both civilian and military production centers would evolve and adapt through time.
At first, Roman units campaigning in foreign territory would be entirely supplied by a system of logistics from the nearest Roman provinces. Then, as the new territories became pacified with permanent forts and outposts, the military garrisons would start, in part, producing and repairing their own equipment. And only when the local industries, mines, and businesses were back on track, could the civilian workforce be finally employed to help fully sustain their local Roman garrison… This genius system allowed the Romans to expand and outsource the maintenance of their expensive armies onto conquered lands, in exchange for protection, peace and development.
At first, locally produced equipment still followed native traditions for some time. In practice, this meant that legions and auxiliaries from different provinces would not look the same. A perfect example of this is a legionary depicted in the Adamklissi metopes from the time of the Dacian Wars.
His helmet is of local danubian tradition of iranian influence; the scale armor too is a deviation from traditional mediterranean models with additional shoulder protection, a consequence of being stationed in a not yet fully Romanized area. Only through time would local productions become fully romanized, but they would still never be standardized. Shoes and sandals of the Rhine legions would be different from the legions in the east, as civilian producers on the Rhine, who did most of the footwear production, adopted local designs better suited to the colder climate.
Likewise, a belt from a military workshop in Raetia would show worse craftsmanship than the original Italian or African pieces it was trying to copy, and would include a few local stylistic touches… This chaotic hybrid system of procurement was not the result of a disorganized war machine, but instead a flexible system that could adapt to local situations and fulfill all the needs of the army. And in an era when transportation was limited to the speed and carrying capacity of draught animals, this was not a small feat… But the imperial authority still had to pay the salaries of their armies, which alone would cost them the vast majority of the empire’s tax revenue. If you’re interested in how much soldiers were paid and more importantly, what and who they spent it on, you can check out our previous video here!
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