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Dressing for battle: Arms and armour in the Roman Empire
A new exhibition at the British Museum looks at a soldier’s life at the height of the Roman Empire. Here, the show’s lead curator Richard Abdy considers some of the extraordinary objects on view, and reveals how they helped turn the Roman Army into such a formidable fighting force.
The ancient Romans continue to excite the imagination, as the crowds that flock to the rugged beauty of Hadrian’s Wall or to the grim grandeur of the Colosseum attest. Such archaeological sites are a reminder that Rome’s greatness was built on the most overt and rapacious military imperialism imaginable. A new exhibition at the British Museum, Legion: life in the Roman army, examines the war machine that sustained such a darkly charismatic empire, through objects found throughout the Roman world. The focus of the show is on soldiers, their families, and the many other people who belonged to military communities in the first two centuries of the Roman Empire and the common era – but no
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