Centurions (late 2nd century AD)

[Paul Elliott]

1. Current thinking, pioneered by Graham is that soldiers wore red tunics in battle and white tunics for ceremonies/off-duty. Centurions may also have worn red cloaks.

2. Possibly not, crests are fitted to these new heavy-weight helmets, but fittings for them are rare/not yet found? But certainly crests were at times worn. Personally I doubt a transverse crest. Rank in the 3rdC seems to have been communicated through better quality equipment, red belts, fancy brooches, phalerae etc.

Not sure about the helmet decoration your talking about, can't quite see it ....

EDIT: If you mean the centurion's red crest ... yes, a brooch was found decorated with that exact style of helmet, with a crest fitted. Its in the last edition of Bishop & Coulston, and there may be a photo on the web somewhere (Mike Bishop has put lots of illustrations from the book online IIRC).