Costume Ideas for Roman General or Soldier Uniform - Part 6

(This is the continuation from Part 5)

10. To wear the wrist guard or cuff on one hand, lay the wrist guard under the wrist and with the palm up. With the free hand, draw both ends of the wrist guard together.
    
    Press one end of the wrist guard with the thumb while the fingers pick up the thin insulated wire from the other end as shown below.
    
    
    
    
    
11. Hook the thin insulated wire to the neck of the other paper brass fastener. Wind it a couple of times to secure it.
    
    
    
    
    
12. Here's how the two wrist guards or cuffs look like when worn. The heads of the fasteners look like brass studs.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    The bluish shine on the wrist guards give them a nice metallic sheen.
    
    
    
    
    

Letter Scroll

One of the props to be used by the character Florante in the speech is a letter. It was sent from Albania summoning Florante to return. So I advised my son to pretend to read from a letter in one part of his speech and announce what that letter was saying.

I have no idea how letters were written as envisioned by the poet, Francisco Balagtas. So I just assumed that a letter in the form of a scroll would be a good representation.

To make the letter scroll, I glued a short chopstick at the top edge of brown paper. The paper measured 11.5" x 7.5". About 1/2" of the paper was rolled and glued to the chopstick as shown below.

I then rolled up the bottom edge tightly and bound it with a piece of thin wire.

After a day, I removed the wire and the paper still maintained the tension on the roll. This is perfect for the "reading" in the speech.

Using the Letter Scroll

To use it in the speech, the right hand picks up the scroll as shown below.

One hand holds the top edge of the letter scroll where the chopstick is attached. The hardened edge keeps the scroll stable.

The other hand pulls downward and unrolls the scroll.

To keep the scroll out of view when the speech starts, it is kept tucked in the belt at the back of the character. The cloak hides it as the character speaks or walks around. Here is the letter scroll as it is tucked at the belt. (My son just turned his back and lifted the cloak to show the scroll.)

So when it is time to read the letter scroll, the character simply pulls it out from his back with one hand and opens it with the other. The character then "reads" from the scroll (nothing is actually written on the scroll).