Roman helmet surface

[Matthew Amt]

If forge-blackened armour was practical for medieval troops, why would it not be just as practical for Romans? Do we have a date when 'shiny' became bad and 'grotty black' became good?

Our ideas of "practical", and medieval ideas of "practical", are not necessarily the same as ancient ideas of "practical". PLUS, practicality may have had very little to do with it! Even in the Renaissance, munition armor could be shiny, while some incredibly expensive custom armors were black. It's all about FASHION.

Also another quite rightly raised point was that armour would not need to be mass produced very often in Roman times, and so no excuse for not polishing when it was made. This scenario must also apply to the middle ages then, but still that blackened armour...

Well, aside from fashion, which I already mentioned, there certainly were instances in which huge amounts of munition armor were ordered and produced. Henry VIII's campaigns in France, and the Scottish invasion of the Flodden campaign spring to mind, but there were many others.

The fact that we do have some surviving colour images of Roman armour in frescos and mosaics, well I do feel a bit wary of what we see in those as they tend to show an idealised world of heroes and gods and gladiators etc. No doubt if you wanted to pay for and impress your visitors with your new fresco or floor, you would want Achilles to be in the shiniest armour possible. Imagine if the centre of London was buried and dug up in two thousand years...

Careful, Dave, it really sounds like you are trying to explain away the *evidence* in favor of your own modern concept of how things *should* have been! Bad idea. Aside from the fact that we do have color images of ancient soldiers in battle, you have to remember that ALL of the evidence--artistic, literary, and archeological--agrees that armor was shiny! This isn't something which is dubious or hazy or unknown or debatable, really. Plus, those popular images of gods and heroes were exactly what soldiers were trying to emulate.

Lastly, there was a point made about the Romans not fighting in trenches. Well I am sure that I have read that they made extensive use of trenches during sieges and the like, and don't forget that after every day's march through enemy territory, they built marching forts, which had big trenches around them.

Good point! But there is also evidence for weather covers over armor and helmets, which would keep the mud off. And even without that, not a big deal--mud and dirt can easily be wiped off before turning in for the night. (You'd have to do that with blackened armor, as well, in any case!)

I understand that when it comes to re-enactments, the public want to see 'sexy' Romans as they see on TV

Doesn't matter a bit to me what the public "expects" to see, especially based on TV or Hollywood. I show them what our research shows to be accurate. Everything we know about the Romans indicates that they loved to shine on the battlefield.

but I do think that trying to conceal a body of troops THAT shiny on the battlefield or laying an ambush, well it would be a serious drawback.

On the battlefield, you're talking about lines of troops 4 to 12 men deep in solid formations half a mile long, facing each other on open ground about a hundred feet apart. What's to hide? Even for an ambush, you're talking thousands of troops, but we know that sticking them in a ravine or behind a hill or in a forest was perfectly adequate. Well, usually! There are also accounts of ambushes being given away because of sunlight reflecting off the shiny armor! So even when it was obviously most practical not to have shiny armor, they did anyway.

Vale,

Matthew