Question

Why are shields important to roman soldiers

Answer 1

A shield is meant for protection

Answer 2

he shield was an important piece of equipment for defending basic sword and axe swings, thrusts from spears and protection against ranged weapons. My favourite method that the romans would of used was the 'Tortoise' formation (or as the Romans would call it, The Testudo Formation). The romans would use large convexed rectangular shields that would stand nearly as tall as your average roman soldier. Imagine you are part of a Roman Legion, enemy soldiers with javelins are stood on a nearby ridge, they have a good supply of projectiles and look like they could pick you off for hours. You are stood with your fellow soldiers in a rectangle in the shape of a standard piece of paper, the men at the edges would face their shields outwards, in the safe knowledge that the line behind will cover the heads at the front with their own shields, once all shields were in position all of the men could crouch down a bit and hey presto you are all completely covered with the men at the front still able to see whats happening. With a well trained and disciplined group of soldiers this could take seconds to complete, no army ever had an infinite supply of spears/arrows/javelins so you could decide to sit it out until they have ran out or move forward slowly showing only your ankles and feet. This is a clever roman technique used in 35BC by Marc Anthony however it didn't always work the formation was used at the battle of Carrhae where the Romans were annihilated by the Parthian horse archers, they fired arrows and charged until the formation was scattered, this ended in a roman defeat.