The Romans had quite a bit of expertise in metalworking, and they applied much of their ability towards equipping their armies. I just watched a show from England, where a bunch of English guys decided to live the life of Roman soldiers of the 1st century. The guys did reasonably well, but I didn’t understand a few points:
-Roman body armor was steel or wrought iron? , but why was bronze used for helmets? Is bronze strong enough to protect against a stell blade?
-Roman swords werevery short-they werenothing like the long swords of medieval times.Hence, Roman swords were used for stabbing, not slashing. This meants that a roman soldier had to get really close to the enemy…howoften did this happen?
Why was bronze still in use, after the refinement of iron and steel metallurgy?
Steel was not invented until later - the- inustrial revoluton in Great Britain and the initiation of the railways was only possible because of the invention of steel.
I do not know what the Romans made their armour from, but it can’t have been steel
A useful link.
Well, that pretty much settles that.
A minor nit pick, though: Steel was invented much earlier than the industrial revolution, for example the famous 16-18th century Damascus steel blades. And the Encyclopedia Britannica notes there is some evidence the Han dynasty in China may have been able to produce some steel as early as 206 BC–AD 25.
It’s just that steel was rather expensive until the industrial revolution …
Roman body armor was made, typically, of either iron or bronze. There were a few reasons for this
*Cost–soldiers supplied their own equipment and steel, being more labor intensive, was costlier.
*Recycling–armor was repaired, reused, recycled as long as possible, passing from one owner to the next. Thus, new versions wouldn’t be immediately available to the common soldier.
*Availability–there are some accounts of the bronze and copper statues of conquered nations being seized and melted down to make new armor for the conquering Romans. Whether this was out of necessity, or merely symbolic is unclear.
*Steel, unless tempered (which was much more labor intensive than bronze/iron work) can be very brittle. The reason so many helmets were made of bronze or iron was because it could be made “soft”, meaning it would absorb a blow by crumpling–kind of like a crumple zone on a car.
On Preview–actually, Steel was first intentionally heat treated around 900 BC. It might not have been common, but it was around.
Fair warning that this info comes from vaguely remembered HS and college classics studies, so I’m sure there’s more to it than that. I’ll leave it to one of our more reasearch friendly dopers to fill in the blanks or correct me if I’ve misremembered…
I’d like to see a cite S.V.P. seeing that Toledo steel (swords, etc) was reknowned already in the middle ages and I have not seen any cite that they invented steel, only that they made better quality.
The most common form of Roman sword was the Gladius. It was indeed very short and used for stabbing. The Roman army normally fought using a phalanx with the soldiers standing around three feet aprt with their shields forming an almost unbroken line. The sword then darted out between two shields. A three or four inch deep stab wound would take out just about anyone.
More on Roman tactics here.
Wrought iron or bronze, probably never steel in this period ( wootz steel was imported in ingots from India, but was expensive stuff more frequently used for luxury-quality cutting blades ).
Easier to work with and more reliable than iron. In particular, easier to cast as thin sheets, which can be shaped to make a helmet.
Is bronze strong enough to protect against a steel blade?
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Not really, no. But the Romans and their opponents did not make great use of steel weaponry, but rather more worked iron weapons who depended a great deal quality-wise on the particular deposit of ore they were cast from. As far as that goes cheap iron weapons may have even occasionally been a little inferior to good-quality bronze ones due to their brittleness.
All the time - It’s not like they would stick with something that didn’t work ;). Roman would jab or throw their pilums, which would break off in the foe’s armor, shield or the foe themselves, slowing or immobilizing them, then close to stab.
As above. It gradually disappeared as better-quality steel and techniques for working it were introduced more widely. Though cast bronze cannon were used right into the 19th century because it was easier to judge tolerances and though softer than cast iron, was, again, less brittle.
- Tamerlane
From the link supplied by belladonna it seems steel was known by about 1200 BC, in Egypt and tempered steel was known in Roman times.
It’s debateable and depends how you define it:
According to Manning, “there is no evidence for widespread, regular, intentional production of steel in the Roman Empire,” (Manning 148).
From here:
- Tamerlane
Bronze is generally a better armor material than iron. It has more or less all the advantages, but it is very expensive. Even the wealthiest ancient kings couldn’t easily afford as much material as was used in a suit of medieval plate mail. It wasn’t so good for weapons, I think, but much more useful for armor.
Historically speaking, metal was incredibly valuable. By some estimates, the amount of iron in use in history averaged less than 2 pounds per person, and bronze was even more expensive.
Tempered steel is a very old idea, but its extremely expensive and varies greatly in quality, before the early industrial revolution.
Re: Gladius vs. Longsword.
Remember, Roman legions were trained to fight in formation. Your shield protects you, and also the man on your left, and you are protected by the shield of the man on your right. Your sword is used to thrust between your shield and the shield of the man on your right. By fighting in close formation you achieve local superiority…you have 2-3 soldiers fighting 1 warrior.
Long swords need lots of room to use the edge for slashing. Germans didn’t fight in formation, they fought as individuals. While an individual German was easily the match of an individual Roman, 1000 Romans could easily defeat 5000 Germans.
Even one Roman soldier was probably more than match for one German - they mastered the art of rushing the enemy and stabbing them in the gut. 
Even that is unclear. I’ve read accounts of a battle of champions, where a previously-undistinguished Roman soldier defeated a towering brute of a Gaul. He did so by quickly closing the distance with the Gaul, to where his shorter and quicker gladius was much more effective than the Gaul’s much larger sword.
An the tight Roman formations weren’t limited to 2 or 3 soldiers. One of the Roman’s most feared tactics was the tetegua, or tortoise, where up to a hundred soldiers marching in tight formation would lock their shields together not only in front, but on the sides, rear, and top, allowing them to advance nearly invulnerably to stabbity range.
The interesting thing about bronze is that although it is made of expensive ingredients (copper and tin, usually), it can be cast, so it can be made into complicated shapes with little labour. Wrought iron, on the other hand, is cheap to produce but is expensive to work: it has to be worked into shape by extensive forging. {Means of casting iron and steel (or even casting cast iron, which is not simply iron that has been cast) were not available to the Romans.}
In the 6th Century BC the Greeks used iron for blades, but bronze for cuirasses. By the 1st Century BC smithcraft had improved to the extent that iron cuirasses were cheaper (and lighter) that equally-effective bronze ones, but bronze helments were still competitive. Also, mail was available. Further development (including possible rises inteh price of tin) made the wrought iron helmet decisively more cost-effective than the cast bronze one.
Regards,
Agback