The Roman military is an iconic, ancient institution; everybody is familiar with the image of fearsome Roman soldiers marching in their famous columns. In this book, Roman military experts John and Hilary Travis turn their attention to the shields used by the historic Roman stalwarts, drawing on their expertise, their wealth of illustrated material and the world of re-enactments.

In its study of the panoply of shields used by the Roman army, this book differs from those preceding in that it has combined the reams of published information on sculptural imagery and archaeological hard evidence with an in-depth look at the artefacts themselves, their component parts and physical manufacture, going further by reconstructing and subjecting them to regular use in combat conditions.

• Authors very active in re-enactment community and previously

  successful with Roman Body Armour (Amberley, 2011): ‘The read

  of the year’ MINERVA; ‘Revolutionary study of Roman armour’ CLASSIC

  ARMS AND MILITARIA

• Enriched with over 100 illustrations
• Involves reconstructing the shields and putting them through

  environmental stress and combat conditions, a strong unique factor

• Reviews in national and international journals, such as Britannia, Journal

  of Roman Studies, Journal of the British Archaeological Association

• Reviews in History Today and Military

  History magazine

• The perfect book to stock at the Roman Baths (Bath & North

  East Somerset Council), Hadrian’s Wall, and Binchester Roman Fort (County

  Durham)