2000 years ago, the Roman army is the best equipped army in the world.
While the architects have mastered the art of manipulating stone and concrete,
military engineers have fashioned metal and wood to
create devastating weapons of war.
The Roman foot soldier's main weapon is
a fearsome sword called the Gladius,
a double edged blade about 18 inches long with a sharp
point.
It was used for stabbing and thrusting, rather
than slashing.
But if a sword could be deadly at close quarters,
their spear called a Pilum, could kill from a distance.
It can be thrown with lethal accuracy around
100 feet.
DR KATE GILLIVER: The Pilum is designed basically
to kill, it's designed to pierce people, to pierce armour, to pierce their shields.
The Pilum has a 6 foot long wooden shaft,
topped with a 2 foot long iron shank.
The tip of the shank was triangular, and would've
been difficult to remove once it impaled the enemy.
The drawback of any javelin type weapon is
that enemy may pick it up, and throw it back.
But Roman military scientists employ the latest
metal making technology to protect their men.
The iron tip of the Pilum is tempered through
rapid heating and cooling, making it hard and strong.
The shaft is untempered, leaving it soft.
Striking a shield the Pilum's strong tip
penetrates, but the soft shaft bends,
making it useless for the enemy to throw back at
the Romans.
Protecting your soldiers from injury is just
as important as arming them for attack.
Early Roman soldiers wear chainmail called
lorica hamata.
Vertical rows of solid washer-like rings made from
bronze or iron,
are linked to riveted rings that run horizontally.
It does have its flaws, it is very heavy weighing
around 33 pounds,
and enemy arrows can penetrate between the rings to injure the wearer.
Weapons reconstruction expert Ben Jeal studies
the impact of Roman weapons.
BEN JEAL: So it literally explodes through
the links and makes its own way.
Roman armourers come up with a far superior
form of protection,
articulated plate armour called lorica segmentata.
Made from a series of overlapping iron plates
joined together by leather straps,
it's as flexibile as chainmail but one third lighter.
The protective shoulder and body pads worn by
football players work in much the same way.
The light segmented sections on the shoulders
and chest allow movement,
but spread the impact of a heavy blow around the body.
The lorica segmentata is built to withstand
an enemy arrow.
BEN JEAL: Well it went in, but only about
that far.
The arrow may have made a dent, but the armour
saves its wearer from serious injury.
And if the Romans' weaponry has a modern
feel, then so do the tactics they use.
Some can still be seen today, on the streets
of New York.
31st January 2002, facing demonstrations against
the World Trade Organization,
the New York police defend themselves with the latest body
armour and high tech protection.
But this use of shields is remarkably similar
to something 2000 years ago.
The Roman legions know exactly how to fight
heavily armed foes.
They use the testudo, Latin for tortoise.
Legionnaires bunch together and lock their
shields in formation to create a large protective screen,
a formation as effective in attack,
as it is in defence.
The soldiers use a large curved shield, which
is made from another modern sounding material,
plywood.
DR KATE GILLIVER: Plywood's very easy to
make, you just take a few layers of wood and
glue them together with the grain at 90 degrees
to each other on the different layers,
and that provides a protection that's fairly
firm, but that is still a little bit flexible,
and that's how they're able to produce
these curved shields.
Laminating the alternate layers at 90 degrees
gives the shield its strength.
Drop a marble on a thin sheet of wood, and
it breaks easily.
Put two sheets together with grains in the
same direction, and they still break.
But cross the grains, and the marble bounces
off.
But it isn't just the foot soldiers who
have the high tech equipment,
the Romans can also wheel out the big guns.
DR KATE GILLIVER: I think one of the things that impresses me most about Roman military technology is the artillery.
Few examples of Roman artillery survive, but the Romans left detailed clues as to how to recreate them.
Jeal is a member of the Ermine Street Guard, Britain's leading Roman re-enactment group.
He believes their recreations help us to understand
how Roman technology worked.
BEN JEAL: Before this was done nobody really
knew how these weapons, and how this equipment
worked, but just knowing how it was constructed
doesn't really tell you how it was used,
and that's why experimental archaeology
like this is very important.
This is the scorpion, it fires iron tipped
bolts.
It was used in the first stages of attack,
and during sieges.
It pierces armour and kills instantly.
It's a bit like a giant crossbow.
The rigid bow arms are cranked back, storing
the energy in the two vertical skeins made
of rope and sinew.
Once the bowstring is released it fires the
arrow 12,000 feet at incredible speeds.
BEN JEAL: This is the bolt, that would be
placed here.
When I release the bolt you'll see that the wooden shaft underneath it also projects forward, and that acts very similar
to the barrel of a gun keeping the bolt as
straight as possible when it leaves the weapon.
As you can see it's fully manoeuvrable,
I then aim at a target, and when I'm happy to shoot at them, I will.
The scorpion is a lethally effective weapon.
DR KATE GILLIVER: They would've caused devastating
injuries,
there are skeletons of British people who were probably killed by the Romans when
they invaded.
There's one guy who had an arrow head through his spine,
another guy
had a catapult bolt through his head,
and it went through his skull about here, it must have killed him instantly.
Although it's an effective anti-personnel
weapon, the scorpion is of little use in attacking a building.
For that, the Romans need something with a
bit more punch, the onager and ballista.
DR KATE GILLIVER: I think the stone throwers
are the most devastating piece of Roman technology.
These pieces of artillery fire large stones
at the enemy.
During sieges they propel projectiles so high
into the air that they can break down enemy walls.
The whizzing noise of the stones strikes terror
into Rome's enemies.
To increase the fear factor they're painted
black, so they're harder to see.
DR KATE GILLIVER: It's very effective physically
but it's also a huge psychological weapon,
and enemies who the Romans are fighting are
really scared of this stuff.
The ballista works like the scorpion, but
is bigger and more powerful.
It can fire a 60 pound stone forward, or a
3 foot bolt around 15,000 feet,
allowing the soldiers to stand well away from enemy archers.
The speed of the missile is phenomenal, hitting
its target at around 115 miles per hour.
Anyone sustaining a direct hit would be killed
instantly.
The onager uses a different principle.
It catapults basketball size stones weighing
up to 50 pounds, nearly 1000 feet,
using a single arm and sling.
The vertical arm is powered by a large horizontal
skein of rope, coiled and twisted,
to create a rotational force.
The skein acts like a spring, storing energy
to be released on firing.
The more powerful the spring, the more powerful
the catapult.
The Romans use rope made from sinews because
it's very springy,
and gives back an exceptionally high percentage of the energy stored in it.
Each Roman legion would carry around 60 pieces
of artillery.
The combinations of technology and tactics,
makes the Roman army the premier fighting
force in Europe for 500 years, and influences
military tactics for the next 1500.
