Reenactment Legion Uniformity vs Variety

[Marcus Mummius]

A

I wont argue the point, since there is no way to know and i could be very very wrong, i just have a hard time believing that such a professional army, that could be considered in ways more advanced than its medieval successors, did not value in some way uniformity, apart of the scutum design, if there was indeed uniformity in that.

I think we should not look for uniformity in the way how things looked, but rather look at the fact that almost all Roman soldiers were equipped with a helmet, armour, a sword, a shield, decent footwear etc... IMO this can be seen as a kind of uniformity, but on a different level. Most Roman soldiers were well equipped no matter if they provenated from simple peasant stock or from the upper classes of society. This is, I believe, one of the important advantages of the Roman army over other cultures in the same and other time periods.

I'm talking of the early Imperial period here, not republican times pre-Marius.

vale,