Thanks for your post, belatedly. I thought that I was the only one besides ancient Rome book authors who knew that the Roman 'pedes' legionary of the 4th century looked and was equipped differently than his 100 A.D. counterpart. I mention, 100 A.D, because this period represents the Roman legionary at his apex and armed and armored as was accuratel depicted in the 1999 movie, GLADIATOR. But Hollywood is too lazy to update its research.
The 312 A.D. Roman legionary was depicted 'near' accurately in this BBC documentary. Not everyone was still using mail although it was around because the Romans kept using military equipment as long as it was serviceable. Scale armor was reportedly widespread. Then again, I read that the 4th century legionary often was not equipped with body armor. The state equipped him with a cheaper, mass-produced helmet that looked cheap and unsophisticated compared to those of the previous two centuries, but it worked and that is what counted in the financially tight times and when manpower was harder to come by yet desperately needed to expand the army even further. A larger, oval shield helped somewhat to compensate for any dearth of body armor. The longer sword, the 'spatha' had already replaced the shorter gladius from the early part of the 3rd century. And yes, everyone wore full-length pants. The tight-fitting braccae (breeches) which resemble women's capri pants today, was long out of fashion.
I was indeed impressed with the depiction of the lead-weighted dart, called, 'plumbata', five of which were stored behind the shield. These were nasty, wounding, maiming weapons not expected to kill but to disable and slow down, much in the way the medieval Japanese ninja deployed their metal star-shaped shurikens and throwing metal spike 'shakens'.
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