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Roman Auxiliary shield color - Eronnius - 07-07-2012
Ave Frater,
I've been reading some of the threads on the color (and designs) of auxiliary shields. Does anyone know where the "green" for 1st-2nd C. auxiliary shields comes from? It seems that numerous groups (as well as DEEPEEKA) have adopted green as the basic color of auxiliary shields just as red has been adopted for legionary scuta. What is the general opinion of this group? Is green or red a better interpretation for 1st -2nd century auxuiliary shields? Does it matter? Does anyone really care?
Gratias,
Eronnius - LEGIO IX HISPANA - Virginia Chapter & Rianorix the Celt
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - M. Demetrius - 07-07-2012
Like a lot of things, until they color spectrograph Trajan's Column (and other similar monuments) and show what color the shields on it were painted, we just won't know. So really, it gets down to what colors were actually available and what color the unit decides to use from that list.
As far as I know, we don't know. The Fayum shield was red, but it was a scutum.
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - AMELIANVS - 07-07-2012
I think that Red For legionary and green for auxiliary probably comes originally from much influential earlier illustrations of Mr.Peter Connolly.
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Nathan Ross - 07-07-2012
Quote:I think that Red For legionary and green for auxiliary probably comes originally from much influential earlier illustrations of Mr.Peter Connolly.Actually it possibly comes from the even earlier illustrations of Ronald Embleton:
![[Image: 2ndcentauxroirobinsonn.jpg.w300h436.jpg]](http://legvi.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/2ndcentauxroirobinsonn.jpg.w300h436.jpg)
It might be worth mentioning that many of the flat oval shields found at Dura Europos (mid 3rd century) were green and/or pink!
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - AMELIANVS - 07-07-2012
To Nathan Ross:Yes, you're right, I forgot it.I wonder how many shields were actually found in dura europos?Does anybody know where I could find some summary about all of dura's shields?
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Caballo - 07-07-2012
Simon James indispensable book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Excavations-Dura-Europos-Military-Equipment/dp/0714122483
Shields and a whole lot more.
His website plus illustrations ( some of them) from the book http://www.le.ac.uk/ar/stj/dura.htm
And while the book is not cheap, it is well worth it.
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - caiusbeerquitius - 07-07-2012
Quote:The Fayum shield was red, but it was a scutumWhere does this info come from?
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - AMELIANVS - 07-08-2012
Quote:Simon James indispensable book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Excavations-Dura-Europos-Military-Equipment/dp/0714122483
Shields and a whole lot more.
His website plus illustrations ( some of them) from the book http://www.le.ac.uk/ar/stj/dura.htm
And while the book is not cheap, it is well worth it.
Thank you
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Nathan Ross - 07-08-2012
Quote:Does anybody know where I could find some summary about all of dura's shields?While you save up your cash for Simon James's book, you might be interested in the summary of some of the Dura shield fragments identified by Cumont HERE. The rest of the thread has some more interesting shield-colour related stuff.
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Graham Sumner - 07-08-2012
Pavel AMELIANVS wrote:
I think that Red For legionary and green for auxiliary probably comes originally from much influential earlier illustrations of Mr.Peter Connolly.
Nathan Ross replied "Actually it possibly comes from the even earlier illustrations of Ronald Embleton":
There is not much in it but Connolly's pictures come first. His book 'The Roman Army', was published in 1975, while H. Russell Robinson's book 'What the Soldiers wore on Hadrian's Wall' which Embleton illustrated was published in 1976.
Embleton would later work on the Frank Graham Hadrian's Wall series of books published from 1978 onwards up to the compilation volume in 1984. He has Auxiliaries with red, blue and green shields but the legionaries generally with red ones.
Connolly of course had also worked with Robinson on 'The Armour of Imperial Rome', also published 1975, with the legionaries with red shields. Robinson was a reference for Michael Simkins whose Osprey book 'The Roman Army from Caesar to Trajan' had recently just been published in 1974 illustrated by Michael Youens. It too has all the Legionaries with red shields and the Auxiliary infantryman does as well.
However Legionaries with red shields go back much further at least to the Illustrated costume book by Racinet published in 1888. He has an Auxiliary with a blue shield. His illustrations were very influential for later illustrators like Amedee Forestier and Fortunino Matania, film-makers and even early model kits like those from Airfix, the Julius Caesar figure that they produced was a direct copy of a Racinet illustration of a Roman officer.
Ultimately of course these illustrations influenced early re-enactors and there is I presume a direct link with the Connolly illustration of an Auxiliary infantryman in his 'The Roman Army' book and the shield design adopted by the Batavian re-enactors in Britain which Adrian Wink from RAT is part of.
Illustrations of later period soldiers tend to use shield patterns from the Notita Dignitatum and Embleton was one of the illustrators whose work bought those to popular attention in the Hadrian's Wall series as well as the follow up to Simkin's book which he illustrated 'The Roman Army from Hadrian to Constantine'. The earlier Osprey book was also revised in 1984 and Embleton did the artwork for that too. The Auxiliaries in that now have green shields but the Legionaries have yellow and blue as well as red shields!
Graham.
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Eronnius - 07-08-2012
Ave Frater,
Along wth the background color of the auxiliary shields, do the cresents ("moons"?), stars, and "elongated four-side star" (or what ever it is in the center of the shield?) seen often on the auxiliary shields have a meaning/purpose as does the lightning bolts, wings, and wreaths on legionary shields?
Vale,
Ron - a.k.a. Eronnius - LEGIO IX HISPANA - Virginia Chapter & Rianorix the Celt
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Nathan Ross - 07-08-2012
Quote:There is not much in it but the Connolly's pictures come first. His book 'The Roman Army', was published in 1975, while H. Russell Robinson's book 'What the Soldiers wore on Hadrian's Wall' which Embleton illustrated was published in 1976.You're quite right and I stand corrected. I've always thought of Embleton as older, mainly as I had a copy of 'Housesteads in the Days of the Romans' when I was a kid!
mile:
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Graham Sumner - 07-09-2012
Nathan Ross wrote:
You're quite right and I stand corrected. I've always thought of Embleton as older, mainly as I had a copy of 'Housesteads in the Days of the Romans' when I was a kid!
There does not appear to be much in it Nathan, as they all seem to be published at around much the same time and Russell Robinson seems to have been involved in most of them too.
Sadly I never thought of asking Peter Connolly who it was who came up with the idea of the red tunics too, as it is really his images on the front cover of 'The Armour of Imperial Rome', together with Connolly's own book which have set the standard for the popular perception of the Roman soldier ever since.
My own copy of 'Housesteads etc...' is dated 1978. The one with the warbling Auxiliary!! :-D
Your image above comes from 'What the Soldiers wore....'. My original copy wore out after so much use so I had to get another recently from Amazon! I have all the original Embleton & Graham booklets as well as the compilation volume.
Christian, I think David had got the earlier Republican era Fayum shield confused with the third century Dura scutum. As mentioned most of the Dura shields were painted pink but I think the OP is only interested in the early principate shields anyway. Although we tend to think pink is not a very masculine colour nowadays this view has only happened relatively recently and for some reason opinions seemed to have changed in the early twentieth century.
Out of interest I have always thought that if the star and moon motifs (if that is what they are) were logically painted white or were silvered metal fittings they would show up much better on a black or dark blue background. The wreaths of laurel too would show up well on a dark background. Green leaves on a black background were a common feature of Roman art as well. Some legionary type shields although probably gladiatorial appear in a gladiator mosaic scene from Zleiten in Tunisia. They are red with white decoration or yellow with black decoration.
Graham.
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - Graham Sumner - 07-09-2012
Nathan Ross wrote:
You're quite right and I stand corrected. I've always thought of Embleton as older, mainly as I had a copy of 'Housesteads in the Days of the Romans' when I was a kid!
There does not appear to be much in it Nathan, as they all seem to be published at around much the same time and Russell Robinson seems to have been involved in most of them too.
Sadly I never thought of asking Peter Connolly who it was who came up with the idea of the red tunics too, as it is really his images on the front cover of 'The Armour of Imperial Rome', together with Connolly's own book which have set the standard for the popular perception of the Roman soldier ever since.
My own copy of 'Housesteads etc...' is dated 1978. The one with the warbling Auxiliary!! :-D
Your image above comes from 'What the Soldiers wore....'. My original copy wore out after so much use so I had to get another recently from Amazon! I have all the original Embleton & Graham booklets as well as the compliation volume.
Christian, I think David had got the earlier Republican era Fayum shield confused with the third century Dura scutum. As mentioned most of the Dura shields were painted pink but I think the OP is only interested in the early principate shields anyway. Although we tend to think pink is not a very masculine colour nowadays this has only happened relatively recently and for some reason opinions seemed to change in the early twentieth century.
Graham.
Re: Roman Auxiliary shield color - caiusbeerquitius - 07-09-2012
Dear Graham, that makes sense. Yes, you are very right about the pink. Most "reenactors" are very reluctant displaying pink :-)
What´s the "OP"?
Shields on the (most probably) Augustan esquiline fresco are mostly white, btw.
![[Image: SuperStock_1788-14410.jpg]](http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1788/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1788-14410.jpg)
The older one has light blue / grey and IIRC from an other pic also a white one(s) somewhere.
![[Image: Necropoli_dell%27_esquilino_-_fresco.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Necropoli_dell%27_esquilino_-_fresco.jpg)
*edit* here:
![[Image: SuperStock_1788-14394.jpg]](http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1788/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1788-14394.jpg)
The question is, what is depicted here in what fashion, with which intension... Together with the apparently white wool / felt on the Fayum shield we do seem to have some points for white shields for the early principate.