Hello!

I am in the state of constant research and has turned my attention to the famous column. This has resulted in a few questions I really would like to hear your opinion on. So here they are:

1) Almost all helmets look weird, why? There is attic helmets and a lot of helmets with a strange ring or something on top of it. Often the helmets have a reinforcement band going all the way around the bowl of the helmet. Is there any evidence in archaeological finds of this?

2) In the depictions on the Column the auxiliary are generally fitted in Maille and lack the soldiers belt, is this of any significance and is there any other sources confirming that this was the fact. Pretorians are depicted in many ways but has the Scorpion to distinguish them. Legionaries are very uniform . Is there confirmations of this in other contemporary sources? The Osprey Publishing: Elite, The Praetorian guard by Dr Boris Rankov states in the text to the most left picture on page 22, " The frieze has always been one of the principal sources of information about the Roman Army. In recent years, however, its rigid distinction between Pretorians and Legionaries on the one hand and Auxiliaries on the other, and the general uniformity of the various types, have increasingly been recoginised as artistic conversions." . Is this the general opinion on this forum and how should one interested in recreations handle that statement.

Many thanks!

Martin W

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Ave!

I see you posted this over on the RAT board, too--you'll get good answers there!

Vale,

Matthew

Yepp, a little experiment. People here are more intressted in weapons and armour generally and over there it is ROMAN history. I thought I get different angles on the answers if I posted it in both forums.

As far as I know romans practiced large scale construction for weapons and ships.

Ships were built with modern methods, weapons like ballistae were built according to single, standardized pprojects, so spare pieces could be sent everywhere around the empire to repair broken ones, for example.

I have a friend who is a true schor on roman technologies, once he even tokld me that, in order to rpevent rebellions, metal destined for civilian use was formed in leagues so built as to make difficult to reforge civialn tools into armors and weapons, while military metal was re-forgeable.

They were a modernly organized society under every aspect (think of the practice of lifting for old dames), so I expect to be said by my friend that there was uniformity in equipment.

Have you looked at the book: "The Roman Legions Recreated in Colour Photgraphs" by Daniel Peterson? I believe it is on the myArmoury.com book list. The book has great photo's of Roman equipment. Some of the Roman re-enactor groups in the U.S. recommend it. Maybe it would have some good ideas.

Off Topic a bit:

My personal opinion is to put more stock in the archaeological finds, rather than the artistic momuments of the time. I believe modern art or artists rarely get the details of military equipment complete correct. Just look at how correct the "art" we makenow about the military are. For examlpe is all I had to base my knowledge of World War II German Equipment was the 1960's/ 70's film "PATTON" I would think all German Panzers looked just like American M48 tanks. Or for example look at the famous photo of the US Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima during the Second World War. It was staged for the cameras. Or the famous Soviet photo's of endless lines of German POW"S (The same short line repeated over and over again.). Why would Roman leaders or artists be any different? The point is to show the people the glory and power of Rome, not the correct details of military life. In my opinion there is no glory in battle, just fear, terror, courage, and overwehleming duty. The glory comes later when your are safe at home, telling your friends andchildren about your "great" deeds. I image it was the same for the average Roman soldier.

Michael A. White