As WWII was going off on a tangent lets discuss the legends/facts and nebulous histories of the Ancient world here.

Im currently really into Imperial era Rome (i collect a warhammer ancient battles imperial roman army) and I cant decide what colour to paint their tunics on the legionairies.

Hollywood would have us believe they were read but Im of the belief they were acutally off white.

While red is a fairly cheap dye in the ancient world you've still got to dye *thousands* of tunics red and on campaign they would end up pink or brown in a week of so (not a massive issue as pink didnt have the feminine connotations it has now in those days) so not a great choice to make your army stand out as the dyes would vary wildly

My money is on them having unbleached white sheeps wool tunics

No survvijng roman fabric exists in the modern world in which you can tell the colour and very little is written about the 'detail' of the uniform as they expected you to know what a roman legionary looked like back in the day when caesar and the like wrote their accounts.

we do know purple was a senatorial colour and we do know officers had red cloaks

So do i paint em 'white/cream' for realism or ''red' for a much more striking looking army?

Suggested reading: http://historum.com/ancient-history/20423-roman-military-clothing.html

Cool, I'm more into Greeks myself, but the Romans had some interesting ideas. Also Herodotus exaggerates his accounts a little. According to him, 1 million Persians were present at Thermypolae, and 4000 Greeks died (which is basically the whole army according to his estimates), when in reality, only the rear-guard (1000) died, with maybe a *few* others dying in combat.

Suggested reading: http://historum.com/ancient-history/20423-roman-military-clothing.html

I helped excavate Pompeii while at uni and i hang out with a lot of archeologists.

I've read no end of books on Romans and the Imperial Roman Army and the problem is that nobody knows what colour their tunics were. its just simply not recorded. Like i say there are references to senatoria purple and officers having red cloaks but thats about it.

I tend to avoid internet forum 'experts' if i've got proper published books to hand on the subject as while im sure a lot of people know there stuff i tend to put my trust in people who are either proffesional archeologists or those trusted by a publishing house to 'know their stuff', at least so much that they were given an adavance to go off an research and write books.

The problem with the internet is *anyone* can publish a website and say what they like and it can be picked up as 'the truth'

I could run up a website tomorrow and write a very serious essay on the 'pink and orange tunics' of the Roman Legionary and then its going to come up in searchs from then on

That said i agree with a lot of the OP on that link. But im not convinced they had varitety of coloured tunics (perhaps privatley purchased) but as a soldier the army then would have bought their uniform from the cheapest source possible and that would have been undyed sheeps wool.

'red tunics' is really a hollywood thing i believe.

Purple tunics are highly unlikely, it was a senatorial colour and purple dye is incredibly expensive at the time. (it used to be made by crushing certain mollusc and sea creature shells IIRC). Likewise yellow/orange using safron was expensive.

The cost of 'dyes' is on of the main arguments for proving 'scottish clan tartan' to be a largely spurious victorian invention and not traditionally scots at all as your average scottish crofter simply couldnt afford the various expensive dyes used in many kilts.

But black, white and brown woven tunics using untreated wool have been around for centuries, mix em together and you get very early 'tartans' and checkered designs.

Suggested reading: http://historum.com/ancient-history/20423-roman-military-clothing.html

I helped excavate Pompeii while at uni and i hang out with a lot of archeologists.

I've read no end of books on Romans and the Imperial Roman Army and the problem is that nobody knows what colour their tunics were. its just simply not recorded. Like i say there are references to senatoria purple and officers having red cloaks but thats about it.

I tend to avoid internet forum 'experts' if i've got proper published books to hand on the subject as while im sure a lot of people know there stuff i tend to put my trust in people who are either proffesional archeologists or those trusted by a publishing house to 'know their stuff', at least so much that they were given an adavance to go off an research and write books.

The problem with the internet is *anyone* can publish a website and say what they like and it can be picked up as 'the truth'

I could run up a website tomorrow and write a very serious essay on the 'pink and orange tunics' of the Roman Legionary and then its going to come up in searchs from then on

That said i agree with a lot of the OP on that link. But im not convinced they had varitety of coloured tunics (perhaps privatley purchased) but as a soldier the army then would have bought their uniform from the cheapest source possible and that would have been undyed sheeps wool.

'red tunics' is really a hollywood thing i believe.

Purple tunics are highly unlikely, it was a senatorial colour and purple dye is incredibly expensive at the time. (it used to be made by crushing certain mollusc and sea creature shells IIRC). Likewise yellow/orange using safron was expensive.

The cost of 'dyes' is on of the main arguments for proving 'scottish clan tartan' to be a largely spurious victorian invention and not traditionally scots at all as your average scottish crofter simply couldnt afford the various expensive dyes used in many kilts.

But black, white and brown woven tunics using untreated wool have been around for centuries, mix em together and you get very early 'tartans' and checkered designs.

I kind of agree on the tunics being white, it just makes sense.

I helped excavate Pompeii while at uni and i hang out with a lot of archeologists.

I am extremely jealous.

It was incredibly cool being at Pompeii.

My mate who i did rock climbing with , his girlfriend was a post grad co-ordinating the summer holiday Bradford University dig at Pompeii.

He said to me in the union bar after a climb one day 'do you fancy going to visit Jarret (i think that was her name its like 21 years ago) and helping out on the dig?'

We did an epic road trip, camping out along the way in fields and camp sites, from the UK to france through switzerland to pompeii, spent about two weeks or so on the dig and then drove back.

All my pics of that time are on 'proper pics' as it was well before convenient digital photography. I'll try and scan the better ones in.

Nice. Pompeii is a sweet site. And we teach the "Pompeii premise" as a thought exercise for all of our undergrads at the university where I teach archaeology, so that's cemented its fame if nothing else.

As to the Roman tunics, I've seen a variety of opinions too. I'm not a classical archaeologist, so I'll refrain from venturing an opinion on the historical coloration. However, I always liked having my legions in the video game Praetorians wear blue. So, I'd paint the tunics blue.

Isn't blue a cheap dye aswell? At least it is today, not sure about roman times.

Undyed white makes sense.

Red ones might be better for troop morale (the blood thing)

Who supplied the tunics, the legion or the troops?

Off-white and red both look good, and are certainly valid from a historical point of view. Price of dyes shouldn't be an isssue (especially in comparision to the cost of the rest of the required gear), and I don't think uniformity is of much concern either - in the first century, one soldier would wear chainmail, the one next to him segmented armour, some would have iron helmets, others still wearing bronze.. probably still organised in comparision to surrounding cultures, but certainly not uniform either.

I believe there is some evidence that (at least in some point in history in one area of the Roman world) the soldiers would have worn off-white normally (marching, in camp), and red for battle. Could be from Caesar, not sure, it has been a while (since I read it, that is, although it's certainly true for the events in question too!).

As for lies of the ancient world.. I've never felt it is right to attribute proper democracy to Athens. Even the (so-called barbaric) ancient Germanic society was more democratically oriented, if looking at the proportion of people with actual influence. It's also strikingly underrepresented how sad the state of affairs was regarding rights for women, especially in ancient Athens. Granted, some good stuff still came from that area and period of time, but not as much as is sometimes believed.

Yeah, Athens was pretty much the worst place in all of Greece to be a girl during its so-called "golden age."

One of the probems we have in our 'image' of the roman legions is that the best surviving 'pictures' of a legion are on trajans column and this is clearly an idealized version.

Lorica segmentata is actually quite rare in terms of archeological finds compared to mail armour but, again hardly any of it survives. (i mean what lot of people think of of 'legionaries' are actually auxiallires and would have been wearing mail.

we base a lot of what we 'think' from the letters between commanders, caesars writings and carved inscriptions like Trajans.

I think dye is an issue. Purple was an imperial/senatorial colour *because* its cost made it radiate 'wealth' when it was seen as at the time it was a costly process of crushing shells to make a fast (as in colour fast) deep purple dye.

But im possibly half remembering, its a few years since i've read my books on imperial rome.

No, you're right, purple was quite expensive at the time. It was even more tightly controlled in the Byzantine empire where purple was strongly associated with the emperor.

Yeah, Athens was pretty much the worst place in all of Greece to be a girl during its so-called "golden age."

While Sparta was arguably one of the best.

Yeah, Athens was pretty much the worst place in all of Greece to be a girl during its so-called "golden age."

While Sparta was arguably one of the best.

But it was a truly awful place to be a non-Spartan.

Yeah, but Athenian women were enslaved in a manner that was different in form to the slavery of the Helots, but no less slavery for that difference. Now if we want to talk a stellar place to be a girl at this time period, let's go with the Scythians or Sarmatians.

Yeah, Athens was pretty much the worst place in all of Greece to be a girl during its so-called "golden age."

While Sparta was arguably one of the best.

But it was a truly awful place to be a non-Spartan.

Helots were actually very well treated for a slave class back then, and Perioiki pretty much WERE free.

Yeah, but Athenian women were enslaved in a manner that was different in form to the slavery of the Helots, but no less slavery for that difference. Now if we want to talk a stellar place to be a girl at this time period, let's go with the Scythians or Sarmatians.

probably wanted to be a lower class woman in the celtic Isles.

Soap, a female divorce for beatings if your husband ended up liking men

Nah Sarmatians. Women get to do horse archery, fight in combat as light cavalry, and have freedom regarding marriage and the like. Plus killer animal tattoos and a culture in love with falcons.

Woohoo!!

I've met another archaeologist on these here boards.

Just as long as you don't use the R word

Cheers

Baaa

Woohoo!!

I've met another archaeologist on these here boards.

Just as long as you don't use the R word

Cheers

Baaa

The R Word? And anyway, now that I have my masters and am on to the PhD portion of my program I'm moving more towards the biological/bioarch side of things.

Ritual.

I did my Masters in Battlefield and Conflict Archaeology, would love to go on to do my PhD, but I can't afford it at the moment.

Good Luck

Cheers

Baaa

Ritual.

I did my Masters in Battlefield and Conflict Archaeology, would love to go on to do my PhD, but I can't afford it at the moment.

Good Luck

Cheers

Baaa

Ah cool. I study violence and warfare through skeletal trauma and all my fieldwork has been battlefield and conflict archaeology. And I despise the R word.

One of the best parts of my Masters was the forensic archaeology course; although I did get a clip around the ear when I was asked what a particular bone was and I said toe.

Cheers

Baaa