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Balteus & Ventralis -- Military Belt & Waistband
***We strongly recommend you make your own!***
The balteus is something that can be considered a non standard peice of equipment. While it was probably a
required item to have it was probably not issued at random but more carefully chosen, adorned, and augmented by the individual
legionary. During the Republic and early Imperial periods of Rome in was common to have a pair of belts worn crossed,
one belt carrying the gladius and the other the pugio. When the lorica segmentata was introduced sometime during the
late first century BC the single belt was intorduced. Now this belt can carry both the gladius and pugio or just
the pugio having the gladius suspended from a baldric. This doesn't mean that if you wear lorica hamata that you have
to have two belts, you can have either a single or a pair of belts. Now, on Trajan's Columon in Rome their are scenes
that depict legionary with lorica segmentata that have up to four belts, but scholars believe this is a misinterpretation
by the sculpture.
The leather is three to six ounce and can be left plain or dyed any other color. In any case it
should be well-coated with neatsfoot oil. Do NOT use leather that is too thick! If you use an 8-ounce belt blank
you may not be able to get the belt end through the buckle. The buckle is most often seen on the right end of the belt,
while the free end is narrowed to fit it. Be sure to position the dagger frogs far enough apart to accept your pugio
scabbard, about 6" to 7" between the centers of the discs. Make sure that you make the belt long enough to wear with
just your tunic and with your armor.
The size of the plates during this period are around 1.5" to 2" wide and 1.5" to 3" long. The plates are generally
stamped from thin sheets (.010") of brass that can be tinned or even silvered. Other plates what seem to be cast
are really stamped designs on sheets of brass (16 to 18 gauge). Plates that have concentric circles are common
with the ends of the plates rolled over. Now these plates are riveted to the belt by flat or domed copper rivets, they
can be riveted through the plates themselves or sodored to the back of the plates. The washers can be round or square.
Here is what “Roman Military Equipment: From the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome” by M.C. Bishop &
J.C.N. Coulston has to say about the balteus.
Although traditionally known as the cingulum militare (or militiae), there is good reason
to believe that the Roman military waist-belt of the 1st century AD was actually simply called a balteus. The
term cingulum is hardly ever found before the 3rd century AD; Varro stated that cinctus was a belt worn
by men, cingillum that worn by women. Papyri and literary sources suggest that balteus is the more
correct term, for in a letter of AD 99 Terentianus' sister Apollonous wrote to him in Greek that 'I understood from Thermouthas
that you obtained for yourself a pair of belts [using the Greek Baltion, equvalent to the Latin balteum], and I was much gratified.'
Another fragmentary letter of the early 2nd century AD, written by Claudius Terentianus to his father Claudius Tiberianus,
includes the phrase balteum militare. The Tiberianus archive also has a letter from one Tabatheus
to Tiverianus which refers to the fact that a relative 'sent your son Isidorus to you so that [he might take to you]
you belts (baltea).' Pliny the Elder shed more light on this terminlolgical problem when he discussed the soldiers'
habit of silvering military equipment, moting that 'their scabbards ring with silver links and their belts (baltea) with silver
plates'. Tacitus recorded that when Vitellius needed to raise money for his attempted usurpation in AD 69, soldiers
handed over their belts (the word 'baltei' is used) in lieu of cash. Isidore of Seville simply stated that
'the balteus is the military belt'.
 Apron:
The apron to the balteus is often called a sporran or groin-guard, but through living history demonstartions it is found
that it can case more harm than good! It is believed that the apron came about by having the split ends of the belt
hang and eventually caught on all over the empire.
The apron can be made up of four (4) to eight (8) leather strips ranging in width from three quarters (3/4") to one (1")
inch wide, and length be from six (6") to twelve (12") inches long. The leather for the aprong should not be thicker
than the belt itself. How ever long you make it, it should not hang below the bottom of your tunic.
On each strip of the apron there where studs attached to it. These studs can be cast with a peg on the
back to serve as a rivet or have a metal disc and solder a rivet to the back of the disc. You can also cut a disc out
of brass, punch a hole in the disc and rivet that to the strip. These studs can be a circle, square, or rectangle in
shape as well as have designs carved or cast in them.
At the end of each strip there was a terminal that always had dangly on it. This dangly can be a simple disc or
a disc with its own dandly, a tear drop, or even a cresent moon. They are attached by two (2) rivets on the leather
strip. These are cut from thin sheets of metal and can have simple designs stamped into them.
Like the belt you have several options when you design your apron. The first would have to be how many leather
straps do you want? You have between four (4) and eight (8) and no longer than twelve (12) inches long. When you
decide on the length of the straps keep in mind they should not hang below your tunic. Dye it the same color
as the belt or you can have it a different color. The decoration of the apron straps is some what complex. The
apron studs can be simple handmade brass washers with a rivet in the middle, to ornate discs. The strap terminals can
be simple and common tear drop in shape to beautifully punched discs with three dangles on the disc.
Wearing the Ballteus:
When worn, the buckle is usually on the right side so that the belt tongue
points back past your right hip. In so doing this the apron will be in the front and the pugio frogs will be on your
left hip.
Ventralis:
The fascia ventralis is a wasitband worn under the balteus. Now this wasitband could be their to hide the many
folds of the tunic when not working, to protect the tunic from the sharp edges of the metal on the back side of the balteus,
or even to enhance the status of the soldier like the balteus itself. Pliny the Elder writes that a soldiers ventralis
was made of rough wool and late Roman frescos shows soldiers wearing the same color scraf and wasitband.
Here is what “Roman Military Equipment: From the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome” by M.C. Bishop &
J.C.N. Coulston has to say about the apron.
It is commonly held that the 'apron' (also sometimes erroneously called the 'sporran' a Gaelic word for purse), as it
has become known, orginated in the elaboration of the belt terminals with studs each. This process, it is said, can
be seen on the sculptural evidence. The tombstone of the aquilifer Cn. Musius from Mainz shows the end of his
belt divided into four straps, each with terminal pendant, three of these hanging freely, the fourth passing through the buckle
and thus appearing shorter. Two reliefs from Pula are also pertinent here. One shows a Pompeii-type sword and
belt, complete with belt-plates, to which it is evidently attached. At the opposite end to the buckle, the belt is divided
into two straps, each of which is studded, with a lunate terminal. The other sculpture shows a dagger attached
to a belt (again with belt-plates) which ends in four straps with crude representations of terminals. The arch at Orange
represents plated belts with terminals. Finally, the fragmentary tombstone relief from Cassacco shows two crossed blets,
the ends of which hang freely as an apron.
Care must be exercised, however, because the bulk of the representational evidence can be dated only very approximately.
In fact, it could equally well be argued that different 'apron' traditions developed in different areas, or that a range of
forms were in use at the same time.
Recommended Suppliers:
Armamentaria: has a nice selection of Republican, Imperial, and Late Roman plates.
CLANG Armory: has a growing selection of plates, apron studs, and terminals. You may can choose from bronze, brass, or
nickel silver.
HR Replikate: has a wide selection of plates, terminals, and apron studs that come in brass, tinned, or silver.
Replik Online: has a very nice selection! Belt plates from the Teutoburg Forest, Vindonissa, and Porto Vecchio. The prices
are a bit high, especially with the shipping from Europe, but worth the price! They also have a nice line of other Roman
artifacts.
Frisivs-F: the site is in German but they have beautiful belt parts! They also have much more!
Recommended Reading:
The Journal for Roman Militay Studies The early imperial "apron" by M.C. Bishop put out in 1992.
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