08-26-2005, 09:11 AM
[color=darkblue]To Gallus, I'm not sure I understand your question. The officers pictured are, I believe, the legatus and the centurio for Legio II Augusta, UK.
To Matt... please, by all means, ask away! Great questions, in fact…
I freely admit to artistic license where the finish of the armor is concerned: it simply looks better, in our opinion (we being the guys who've decided to portray this particular unit and buy this reeeeally expensive armor, not our Legio VI brothers). I'm not sure if anyone can say with certainly what the finishes were on the metal. We tend to think shiny (Hollywood, Caesar's Palace, et al.), but I'm not so sure this was true in every case. What looks cool now almost certainly looked cool then, and these men seem to gave been allowed great latitude with the design (and, I would logically add, finish) of their individual armor. The wonderfully detailed research done by Travis Clark you posted above hints heavily throughout that he suspects the armor was in fact made of leather, either partially or entirely. If even possibly true (and he does make some good points), this question massively eclipses the question of what cosmetic finish each cuirass may or may not have had.
As to why we are all wearing muscelata, that was a conscious decision on our part to attempt to do something different from the accepted norm. For over 500 years, Roman representational evidence has shown muscelata-clad troops, usually hovering around the persona of the Emperor, and often in small groups of two or more. Some wear the so-called “command knotâ€ÂÂ
To Matt... please, by all means, ask away! Great questions, in fact…
I freely admit to artistic license where the finish of the armor is concerned: it simply looks better, in our opinion (we being the guys who've decided to portray this particular unit and buy this reeeeally expensive armor, not our Legio VI brothers). I'm not sure if anyone can say with certainly what the finishes were on the metal. We tend to think shiny (Hollywood, Caesar's Palace, et al.), but I'm not so sure this was true in every case. What looks cool now almost certainly looked cool then, and these men seem to gave been allowed great latitude with the design (and, I would logically add, finish) of their individual armor. The wonderfully detailed research done by Travis Clark you posted above hints heavily throughout that he suspects the armor was in fact made of leather, either partially or entirely. If even possibly true (and he does make some good points), this question massively eclipses the question of what cosmetic finish each cuirass may or may not have had.
As to why we are all wearing muscelata, that was a conscious decision on our part to attempt to do something different from the accepted norm. For over 500 years, Roman representational evidence has shown muscelata-clad troops, usually hovering around the persona of the Emperor, and often in small groups of two or more. Some wear the so-called “command knotâ€ÂÂ
