09-09-2011, 10:27 PM
Hi
There are very few reliable images of soldiers in Roman art and I have never seen any in any check or plaid clothing either tunic or cloak.
There are certainly a lot of striped textiles from Egypt which again do not appear in the painted portraits of those who appear to be soldiers. I think I may have seen one mosaic from Egypt which shows a man, although no evidence he is a soldier, wearing something with checks on.
Something else to bear in mind. It is frequent, even in fairly recent times when a new dominant culture arrives on the scene that the local men adopt the new fashion but the women retain or are made to retain the traditional fashions. We can see this on Danubian tombstones. So in places like Britain and Gaul it is quite possible that check clothing continued to be worn by women for many years after the Roman conquest while many men adopted the plainer Roman fashions. There is a nice portrait bust of an empress where the marble is used to show a checked cloak.
The foreign styles that are adopted by the army are at first the tailored long sleeved tunic and trousers from the north and the elaborate decoration from the east. This evolves into the familiar patterned tunics and cloaks from the later empire but no evidence for soldiers wearing checked clothing. I have mentioned before that there are a couple of cases of senior commanders wearing local clothing. In some of those it is clear the reference is made to insult that person and in a couple of examples I am sure it is really a case of a Gallic rebel emperor obviously must dress in Gallic clothing, whether he did in reality or not.
One oddity, although it is shown on many reliefs, I may be wrong but I have never seen any re-enactor wearing the so called 'Gallic coat'. This certainly something that was widespread for both men and women but no one seems to bother recreating. Perhaps in modern eyes a simple tunic does not conjure up the 'Gallic' look which should be trousers and tunic. Proving we can be as biased as the Romans in our view of Gallic clothing.
Of course it is always possible that Auxiliaries and later Legionaries did wear local styles but that this was something not worth recording in the art and literature of the day.
Graham.
There are very few reliable images of soldiers in Roman art and I have never seen any in any check or plaid clothing either tunic or cloak.
There are certainly a lot of striped textiles from Egypt which again do not appear in the painted portraits of those who appear to be soldiers. I think I may have seen one mosaic from Egypt which shows a man, although no evidence he is a soldier, wearing something with checks on.
Something else to bear in mind. It is frequent, even in fairly recent times when a new dominant culture arrives on the scene that the local men adopt the new fashion but the women retain or are made to retain the traditional fashions. We can see this on Danubian tombstones. So in places like Britain and Gaul it is quite possible that check clothing continued to be worn by women for many years after the Roman conquest while many men adopted the plainer Roman fashions. There is a nice portrait bust of an empress where the marble is used to show a checked cloak.
The foreign styles that are adopted by the army are at first the tailored long sleeved tunic and trousers from the north and the elaborate decoration from the east. This evolves into the familiar patterned tunics and cloaks from the later empire but no evidence for soldiers wearing checked clothing. I have mentioned before that there are a couple of cases of senior commanders wearing local clothing. In some of those it is clear the reference is made to insult that person and in a couple of examples I am sure it is really a case of a Gallic rebel emperor obviously must dress in Gallic clothing, whether he did in reality or not.
One oddity, although it is shown on many reliefs, I may be wrong but I have never seen any re-enactor wearing the so called 'Gallic coat'. This certainly something that was widespread for both men and women but no one seems to bother recreating. Perhaps in modern eyes a simple tunic does not conjure up the 'Gallic' look which should be trousers and tunic. Proving we can be as biased as the Romans in our view of Gallic clothing.
Of course it is always possible that Auxiliaries and later Legionaries did wear local styles but that this was something not worth recording in the art and literature of the day.
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
