Winter Clothing in 1st century AD legionary re-enactment

[Jori]

Tacitus, in his Histories, Book II, chapter XX, about roman general Aulus Caecina Alienus :

At Caecina, velut relicta post Alpis saevitia ac licentia, modesto agmine per Italiam incessit. ornatum ipsius municipia et coloniae in superbiam trahebant, quod versicolori sagulo, bracas [barbarum tecgmen] indutus togatos adloqueretur.

Or, in english :

Caecina, who seemed to have left his cruelty and profligacy on the other side of the Alps, advanced through Italy with his army under excellent discipline. The towns and colonies, however, found indications of a haughty spirit in the general's dress, when they saw the cloak of various colours, and the trews, a garment of foreign fashion, clothed in which he was wont to speak to their toga-clad citizens.

We are speaking of the year 69. What would think an average legionary of his general wearing such barbaric clothes?

[Folkert van Wijk]

I often hear the comment that Romans said (in relation to Celts en Germans) that wearing (short) trousers is a feminine thing to do... Where does this idea come from? I have the feeling it's a reenactorism. Or is there realy a Roman writer who wrote this ones somewere????

[M. Demetrius]

It may be that it's a wrong interpretation of the word "feminalia". Because of its similarity in English to "feminine", some make that connection. "Feminalia" refers to the femur bone, though, so it's not really gender specific. More likely, the Romans would not have thought it "feminine", but "barbarian", which would be far worse in their minds.

[Folkert van Wijk]

So 'femur' is the latin name for that bone?

[M. Demetrius]

Yes, sir.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femur

[sendanor]

Hello people,

I see many posts on legs coverings for the winter for 1st century legionary re-enactment but...

...... now for something somewhat different: how about the lower ARM coverings for this period? I once saw a sketch from one re-eenactment group (I cannot remember which one) in which they argued for loose sleeves put on at the end of the normal length short sleeves of the woollen tunica.

Does anybody know about archaeological, written contemporary or artistic sources for this? Or may I assume that this was a thought which was incompletely sourced by the individual who may have invented this item?

[jvrjenivs]

I would say 'read your sumner'* . Most evidence for 1st century fabric items is in there.

*Graham Sumner - Roman militairy dress.

[sendanor]

Thanks for the literary suggestion, Jurjenius. I will look into it.

[d.carmichael]

I've read all the posts in this form. very interesting dicussion despite it being so long ago. I read in an early post Cirpsvs doing an expermiment by wandering out in the cold for several days without any form of long pants as a roman in just his tunic and didn't find it that cold. My only question referance that would be was climitization taken into account? From what I understand Cripsvs is from scotland and there for used to the cold where someone who grew up in italy or perhaps a land far away such as syria would not be. It could be entirely possible that these people from warmer climates would adopt warmer clothing, at least until they adjusted to their new environment.
I also noticed some heated argument's about things such in referance to evidence, and just assuming etc. Even some radical examples involving velociraptors. Not to stir any pots but i'm a believer that no one is right or wrong unless you have evidence to support you. Someone saying the romans used pants during 1st century AD but has no evidence, to me, is as wrong as someone saying they didn't because theres no evidence prior to 2nd century. In my mind unless you have clear evidence such as a prominant roman writer stating out right that pants were first started to appear in the army between 50-55AD as an example then someone saying there is no evidence prior to whatever is as wrong as someone saying they did or probably did. All we can do is make theories and hope the evidence to make a final decision is made. Until then all you can do is theorize. There is no reason to argue in any sort of offencive or hurtful manor. Debating each others ideas is of course always fun and very good to understand all other possiblities, but should be done in a friendly way.
Just my thoughts.

[Crispvs]

David,

I agree with you that things should be done in a friendly and respectful way. This is what I have tried to do throughout this discussion. At no stage have I tried to argue that trousers were not worn by citizen solders prior to Trajan's Dacian campaigns - merely that there is no evidence for their use by citizen soldiers before that time, so we should avoid making the assumption that they were. They may have been worn by legionaries before this time but even if it was true, we don't know whether it was thirty years or thirty days before.
Added to that, practical experimentation has amply demonstrated that using the clothing items the Romans ARE known to have possessed provides sufficiently good protection from cold already. Remember here that we are not talking about cold of the type sometimes found in Canada but that found in northern Britain and Europe. It is also worth remembering that parts of Italy and Greece can be very cold at some times of year. If our experiments show us that we are well enough insulated from the cold using what we know they had, we thus have justification for stating that the assumption that trousers are necessary for keeping out the cold is a false assumption. Therefore there is little justification for assuming that some soldiers must have used them. It is true that by the early second century AD some legionaries do seem to have been wearing them, but that does not mean we can assume they were worn any earlier. As Graham Sumner has pointed out earlier in this thread, trousers are suspiciously absent from the long list of clothing items known from the Vindolanda tablets.
In portraying legionaries we should aim as far as possible to use only what we have evidence for. If we lack evidence for something, we should only ever move to the area of assumption if it is obvious that something existed for which the evidence is missing - an incomplete picture, if you will. Practical experimentation has shown that first century AD clothing is not necessarily an incomplete picture which needs anything further to complete it.
Regarding your theoretical Syrian (actually, why make him theoretical, given that we know Syrians were stationed on Hadrian's Wall), this thread was supposed to be about what legionaries wore in cold weather. As an auxiliary, a Syrian archer does not really fall within the intended scope of the discussion.

With regard to myself, I must correct you on a small number of points.
Firstly, whilst it is true that I have worn reconstructed Roman cold weather clothing in very cold weather, I have never done this for more than two days at a time. I think you have confused this with my practical experience of alpine hiking in New Zealand, where I did, on a number of occasions, spend several days at a time above the snowline in deep snow wearing a level of clothing not wholly dissimilar to what the Romans had - ie: several pairs of socks, lower leg coverings, shorts, several layers on my upper body and a hat.
Secondly, I am not from Scotland. I was referring (as I noted above) to time spent in southern New Zealand, which is mountainous and which can become very cold at certain times of year. References to me wearing a kilt and hearing the sound of bagpipes on Sunday mornings simply reflect the fact that southern New Zealand was mainly settled by Scots, and the region still retains a reasonably strong Scottish character.

Crispvs

[d.carmichael]

my apologies for the inaccuracies about you. I read the forum at work over a period of a few days and never reviewed it before posting. My memory must have combined and mixed things around.

I am a Canadian military member and don't have extensive knowledge as most of you in Rome, so I cannot speak on what we know or don't. I just wanted to state my view on discussions and creating theories.

[Crispvs]

No offence taken David. We all confuse similar things from time to time. For what it's worth by the way, I largely agree with most of the sentiments you expressed in your post.

Crispvs

[Virilis]

I remember when I was in the army, we lived a week in a tent, temperature being minus 20-30 celsius. The key was to not get wet. In fact snowy, wet conditions when the temperatures are around zero were the worst, gear getting wet. Some pictures by Angus McBride of macedonian soldiers trampling barefoot in the snow is just silly. Then again I can imagine that the romans could very well managed themselves with gaiters etc. in most areas on the conquered europe, at least for short period of times.

[d.carmichael]

I've done multiple exercises in the dead of winter. Spending hours on sentury duty or a patrol ins -30 to -35 with a howling windchill making it feel like -40 cutting right into your bones isn't alot of fun. However with lessons learned during those exercises as well as winter warfare training you learn how to adapt and over come. After extended exposure I also found I needed less gear. When I did my first winter exercise, origionally being from the much warmer west coast of canada it was a massive shock to my system. coldest I had ever felt before was like -10 celsius. Over the years of training in winter environments and living in a much colder area of Canada, I found that unlike before when in -10 i'd be wearing everything as if I was at the center of the antarctic I was now only wearing a fleece sweater, gloves, toque, and sometimes a light rain jacket to keep me dry. -30 or below is still cold as hell no matter how used to the cold you get lol.

[Crispvs]

All very true. I recall that one of the most important things we used to do in snow was to regularly knock off the snow which collected on our boots, as unlike water, snow would not simply run off but would gradually soak into the boots, leading to wet feet, which is not what you want in sub-zero temperatures.

However, to return to the topic, I agree that the ancient soldier would have been far better acclimatised to outdoor conditions than the modern re-enactor is, but I also think that too much discussion of the temperatures found in Canada or Finland is misleading, as I doubt that the Romans (who would normally have spent most of the winter in barracks anyway) would rarely have encountered temperatures much under -5°C. It simply does not get much colder in Britain except on very rare occasions (and the temperatures here now appear to be comparable to those in ancient times) and I would guess the same would apply to most, if not all, of the northern reaches of the Roman empire. Given your example David, I would guess that what might be good enough for most of us today at perhaps +2-4°C, might have been good enough for the hardened Roman soldier down to perhaps -5°C.

Crispvs