About Overlapping Roman Shields

The image of a mass formation of men standing shoulder to shoulder, shields locked, is a cliche of sword-and-sandals movies. It is often imagined that this is the way the Roman Legion fought its battles. The truth is that sometimes the Romans did fight this way, but overlapping shields were involved in only some tactics among many, and they were not a part of the classic Roman infantry field attack.

Identification

The Roman shield was called a "scutum." It was a rectangular, curved shield about 2.5 feet wide and 4 feet long. It was made from two planks of wood or plywood glued together and secured by a boss in the center. The outside was canvas and leather, and the edges bound in iron.

Benefits

The advantage of this kind of handy tower shield is that it protected most of the body on its own. By contrast, the Greek hoplon/aspis protected only some of the body, thus demanding that the bearer always stand in a shield wall to seek the protection of the shields of his comrades. This larger shield allowed the Roman Legion to adopt a more flexible, open order formation.

Function

The typical Roman infantry assault involved the legionaries advancing at a walk in a close but not shoulder-to-shoulder formation behind the protection of their shields. When they got within 30 m, they flung their javelins at the enemy. After the enemy formation was damaged by the javelins, they drew swords and charged at a dead run. The boss of the Roman shield could be used to punch at an enemy and perhaps knock him down, so the shield itself was something of a weapon. Roman soldiers also used their short stabbing swords to stab around the edges of the shield, fighting from a protected posture.

Significance

There was a standard formation that involved Roman legionaries locking their shields into an overlapping formation: the Testudo, or "tortoise." Roman soldiers fit their rectangular shields together to form an improvised, mutually supportive roof and walls to the front and sides. It was said that once formed, the mutually supporting bond of the Testudo was strong enough that wagon-sized boulders could not break it apart. This formation was frequently used in attempts to storm fortifications, where legionaries often marched into a hail of missiles.

Considerations

When confronted by cavalry, it was also not uncommon for legionaries to lock shields into a shield wall and present their javelins as short spears. However, the scutum and especially the javelin were not designed for this kind of fighting. The interlocking round shields and long spears of the Greek phalanx were a much more effective formation for that hedgehog style of fighting.