ROMAN MANICA

AH3851A - Deepeeka Lorica Segmentata Arm Attachment
Roman Manica
1st to 4th century AD

Price: $80
Authenticity Rating: 10

Segmental armor is known from a variety of cultures throughout the Mediterranean, from the Hellenistic period onwards, culminating in the Roman lorica segmentata. This armor covered the entire torso of the soldier, but left the arms largely undefended from the deltoid muscle downwards. As is well-known about the Romans, many of their innovations in drilling and combat were influenced by gladiatorial training and methods. A band of rebel gladiators known as the Crupellarii were reputedly covered head to toe in segmental plate armor. Roman legionaries met these in combat in the early first century AD. It may have been during this contact that usage of a laminated arm defense became known to the legionaries. And so we find evidence in the early second century AD of legionaries being equipped with such arm defenses (manicae), as witnessed on the Adamklissi Metopes in Romania, commemorating Trajan’s wars against the Dacians and depicting some of the prevalent types of equipment used by legionaries in those campaigns. While there is only limited evidence for such arm defenses being used in gladiatorial combat in the first century - with the Crupellari - there is ample artistic evidence for it being used and employed by gladiators well into the period of Constantine.

There has been some scholarly debate over the direction of overlap employed in the construction of such a defense. Some evidence points to the Romans using an overlap going from the hand upwards, which would protect the arm against stabbing blows deployed from the front, while other evidence points to the opposite style of construction, employed to protect against overhead blows rather than thrusts. The previously mentioned monuments to the fallen soldiers of the Dacian campaigns, for instance, portray a downward overlap of the plates, evidently to protect against the dreaded Dacian falx, a deadly war scythe used by the Dacians, that was known to sever limbs and to pierce helmets with ease.

Deepeeka’s version of the Roman manica is of the latter type of construction, providing a memorial to the soldiers who fought against the Dacians, and those who benefitted from the innovations resulting from those losses. Their reproduction is quite good, providing excellent coverage for the arm, and buckles to attach to strapping that would have been extended from the shoulder guards of the lorica segmentata.