Pouch/purse in a well

[Tarbicus]

If the picture is the type of painting I think it is, there are a couple of reasons why some parts of the fresco have faded to pink:

1) The painting is likely to have been done onto wet plaster. As the plaster dries, the uptake of the paint is more difficult. So perhaps the pink items were added later than the more vivid reds. I worked on painted plaster from a Roman villa once, and saw a lot of variance in the red there.

2) OR: the colour mixes for the paints were done differently in batches, and it's only a mistake they haven't dried to the same shade. It may be they ran out of enough of the red pigment (which can be done several ways, including comparatively expensive cinnabar, if memory serves).

Either way with the idea, I guess the pink bits were done at a different time.

Thanks for that Sandra, but I don't see any reason why the clothing detail would be done at a later date than other detail like faces, hair, etc. Why would the belt not be painted at the same time, which is a vivid red, especially when it is on one of the same figures sporting pink detail?

However, I do feel there is an aversion to the idea that Roman soldiers wore pink, simply because of modern conceptions. It's that simple, I'm afraid.