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In ancient Roman warfare, the testudo or tortoise formation was a type of shield wall formation commonly used by the Roman legions during battles, particularly when they were the attacking force during sieges.
A shield wall (scieldweall or bordweall in Old English, skjaldborg in Old Norse) is a military formation that was common in ancient and medieval warfare. There were many slight variations of this formation, but the common factor was soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder and holding their shields so that they would abut or overlap.
The scutum (Classical Latin: [ˈskuːt̪ʊ̃]; pl.:scuta) was a type of shield used among Italic peoples in antiquity, most notably by the army of ancient Rome starting about the fourth century BC. [1] The Romans adopted it when they switched from the military formation of the hoplite phalanx of the Greeks to the formation with maniples (Latin ...
The Servian Wall around Rome was an ambitious project of the early 4th century BC. The wall was up to 10 metres (32.8 ft) in height in places, 3.6 metres (12 ft) wide at its base, 11 km (7 mi) long, [ 1 ] and is believed to have had 16 main gates, though many of these are mentioned only from writings, with no other known remains.
The phoulkon (Greek: φοῦλκον), in Latin fulcum, was an infantry formation utilized by the military of the late Roman and Byzantine Empire. It is a formation in which an infantry formation closes ranks and the first two or three lines form a shield wall while those behind them hurl projectiles. It was used in both offensive and defensive ...
Excavation in a gravel quarry in central Switzerland revealed a 2,000-year-old Roman stone wall. The discovery reveals some astounding hidden history.
Roman legionaries had armour, a gladius, a shield, two pila, and food rations. They carried around tools such as a dolabra, a wooden stave, and a shallow wicker basket. These tools would be used for building castra (camps). Sometimes Roman soldiers would have mules that carried equipment. Legionaries carried onagers, ballistae, and scorpios.
According to Philo the width of a wall had to be 4.5 metres (15 ft) thick to be able to withstand ancient (non-gunpowder) siege engines. [16] European walls of the 1200s and 1300s could reach the Roman equivalents but rarely exceeded them in length, width, and height, remaining around 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) thick.