A section of a Lorica Segmentata attachments for the Corbridge style of segmented plate armor. The standard armor for the Roman Legionary during Rome's prime.

This piece was for specific area of the armor that required a string to lace up the front segments of the armor. Much like shoelace eyelets would be used for today on a pair of military boots. A rivet hole is still visible yet part of rear section of the fragile eyelet is missing.

This shoe lace system again complicated the armor to a level where it required high maintenance and a lot of work to initially put it on.

This type of armor had many advantages over scale mail and chain mail, primarily being that it could withstand much harder impacts from pointed weapons while still allowing a good amount of flexibility. The only inherent weakness, at least on these earlier versions was that all the buckles and hinges could easily break and required constant repair. Furthermore the leather straps trapped in moisture on the iron, making it harder to keep corrosion free. This early version was also relatively hard to put on and invariably required a second person to do the buckles up. It was not until the Newstead type that the buckles, hinges and laces were largely done away with. (1)(2)(3)(4)

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Examples of similar buckles & attachments