The Production of Military Equipment – Fabricae, Private Production and More

The production of military equipment is a subject that is much more complicated than often thought as Roman soldiers were not completely equipped by the state in an uniform manner. While a certain amount of ‘near-uniformity’ was necessary in the army, it was logistically impossible to ensure complete uniformity, even within a single unit. One reason for this was that Roman soldiers owned most of the equipment themselves, which allowed them to choose their own preferences (within limits). After an introduction and overview of the subject, the three case studies look at what the tools found in a fort can say about the production of military equipment on the site, at the influence of workshop traditions on the making of mail armour and at whether state control or local production was the main impetus in the production of crossbow brooches.