ld be either butted or riveted shut. Robinson proposes that the oldest andquickest method of construction is where every alternate row of rings is punched out of sheetmetal and the rows connecting them are made from wire, with their ends flattened, overlapped,punched and riveted. However, there is little evidence of punched rings in the archaeologicalrecord. The Romans appear to have almost always riveted the ends of the rings together, theresult being that the mail was much stronger than the butted variety, made by simply butting thewire ends together and which could be torn open quite readily. These rings could vary in sizefrom an outside diameter ranging between 3mm and 9mm, the latter being found in post 1stcentury A.D. sites. There were advantages and disadvantages in using mail armor. The rings provided excellentdefense against slashing cuts and was also effective against thrusts, while remaining veryflexible. As there were only interlinking rings to give it form the armor suffered little from wearand could be repaired even when badly damaged. Mail armor could be easily recycled andpassed down from the legion to the auxiliary, as it would still remain functional as armorregardless of its age or even if superseded by another type. This may be indicated by thesculptured record from later periods such as Trajan's column, which shows that earlier cuirasstypes were in use with the western legions during the Dacian campaigns. A disadvantage of mail over other cuirasses is that its manufacture is extremely laborintensive, perhaps taking as much as 180 hours to make a complete mail hauberk of the simplesttype worn by auxiliaries from 1/4 inch stamped and butted wire rings. Clearly armor of this typemust have been a costly exercise to manufacture. While it afforded reasonable freedom ofmovement, it was also very heavy, weighing perhaps as much as 15pounds . The weight mayhave been countered by the use of a cingulum militare (a...
