Why do 1st Century Roman groups avoid combat

[Crispvs]

Sorry Marc,

I only mentioned Britannia specifically because it had already been mentioned in the thread.

Yes, I was aware that Britannia threw plumbatae but had not realised that you do so during your battles (am I correct to infer this from your post?). How do you manage to do this safely?

Having spent a good deal of time around Britannia over the years I was also aware of the living history element but I did not think that living history displays (in the accepted sense of the term) were the matter under discussion.

I accept that there are many possible reasons for people to wish to join any re-enactment group. When I joined a combatant group myself twenty years ago it was not the combat itself which most interested me. However, the possibility of engaging in mock combat is a strong one for many people, as I think some of the comments already in this thread show. I have seen many people joining my own group who left again shortly afterwards when they discovered we did not engage in combat. We would be a much larger group if we were a fighting group, I am sure, even if not all members of the group wished to be part of the fighting element. As a parallel, your own group has members who do not wish to participate in gladiator fights but by the same token, I am sure this element has drawn some others in. I have also met members of various groups (including Britannia) who have expressed no interest in the living history side of things and were there primarily for the shows involving combat. As I said, I think combat is draw card for many people, in whatever period. Thus we often see larger 'fighting' societies than purely living history societies, which tend to be smaller. So engaging in combat *can* help a group to become larger. The caveat to that though, is that just because a group is larger, it does not guarantee that it is fighting in an acceptably historically authentic manner.

Crispvs