They sure found a lot of uses for these shields.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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Always makes me wonder how much of it came from "We're paying men to stay under arms 24/7 for years of their lives, and bored soldiers are always fucking about with their equipment"
Explanation: Romans had a neat little trick that was trotted out from time to time where they would form a kind of testudo so their comrades could use the shields as a ramp. It was actually an effective tactic for assaulting low walls and camp ramparts! No need to clamber up while some sod stabs at your grasping fingers, you can hop up and face him like a MAN.
As you can see in the second picture, using military gear of one's comrades for a quite literal boost is still a tactic some 2000 years later!