Reenactment Legion Uniformity vs Variety

[jvrjenivs]

Same with shield designs..all it takes is a template and a reasonable supply of the right colour (variations in shade notwithstanding) paint and a fairly standard pattern is reasonably easy to achieve.

I agree with you, Karus, that it will 'uniformity' would support 'esprit de corps', but do we really know about uniform shield emblems in the republican period? Okay, there are columns and arches showing us uniform designs, but that all could be artist impression (e.g. the artist just saw that emblem).

As far as I know we only have the notitia dignitatum to show us shield designs bonded to particularly units and can we guess some of the arches shows us soldiers of that unit, but do we really know every soldier of a unit had the same shield pattern, or is this just some modern 're-enactment' standard, as we're discussing right now.

I'm very sorry if I totally missed some evidence which make clear there was uniformity in shield designs. I even remember I even heard sometimes about 'winning' pieces of your shield emblem, as a kind of military trophy, but I can't remember where that was. Should be nothing, I guess.