Quote:Many of the painted Late Roman surviving artworks show mounted and dismounted cavalry such as the Luxor paintings. Unfortunately paintings of infantry are more difficult to determine the tunic colours. My point is that there could be even in the 6th Century evidence of infantry, possibly Legionarii, still wearing the red tunics associated with legionary troops.
One of the tunics in the Victoria & Albert museum in London dated to the 6th Century is indeed red.
Hello Adrian,
Although rather rare,much more depictions of soldiers in red tunic survived then just one.the easiest accessible and I think for this purpose still the best existing source of quick information is work Of Graham Sumner(and D'Amato)on Roman military clothing,if you alredy dont know it.
I must confess that I actually wanted to mention that Goliath have red tunic
but I forgot it.
I believe most Roman army enthusiasts are more or less obsessed with what was the color of usual military tunic and if it was red,when this color is somehow strongly captured in popular imagination.
From all what we know it seems Red color was probably considered as typical for soldiers at least from the time of the height of Spartan glory,but we still have no conclusive proof that it was also kind of a uniform color(at least in the Roman army).And if it really was an army color,it would be too naive to associate it only with legionary troops.So if purely because Goliath on that mosaic have red tunic it does not point necessarily on legionaries but rather onRoman soldiers in general.That Victoria & Albert museum-what context it was found?Red color alone says nothing about if it was military.
You also mention that most soldiers are shown in white tunics-that is truth,but the same is valid for civilians.Moreover most of such pictures presented soldiers in non combat situation and without armour so assumption that it is their normal,everyday clothing mostly wore while not in battle is quite likely.Also those frescoes from Luxor probably depicts infantry as well not only cavalry.
Personally,after all what I know at a current moment,I believe in much more colorful and diverse picture of the Roman soldier with very wide open space to every single soldier's personal taste and preferences, with red color having been only popular as Evan already said and kind of the traditional color for military tunic.