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Sword belts of the Roman Empire

In the 3th century AD the soldiers wore their swords in a strop over their shoulder - a so-called bandolér. Vimose contained one of the largest collections of Roman bandolér mountings of bronze sword belts. Four of these are round, gold-plated tin plate with an eagle with a wreath in its beak. The eagle stands on Jupiter's thunderbolt. The inscription are the letters:

"I O M", which stands for Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Jupiter, the best and greatest). The brackets were hardly standard equipment for a private soldier, but originally belonged to officers in Roman service.

One of the other Roman bandolér mountings have originally belonged to a so-called Beneficiarius, who among other things, led the control of the Roman roads. The Beneficiarius also worked in the intelligence agency and collected information on foreign nations. Perhaps an intelligence man joined one of the Germanic armies to gather information about North Germanic tribes? In that case, he never returned with informations, and his sword belt ended up in the Funen sacrificial bog.

 

Sword belts of the Roman Empire
Bandolér plate from Vimose.