Making Pteruges (or at least trying to make Pteruges!)

[Marcus Mummius]

No, they certainly aren't only for officers. A lot of art shows regular soldiers, even auxiliaries with pteryges. You can look at the Adamklisi metopes (considered one of the most accurate depictions of Roman military equipment in art).

Well, although this is true, there is a distinct possibility that these non-officers are Praetorians. They are almost always shown in the immediate vicinity of the Emperor, and they have a high percentage of gear that is, by some, thought to be more indicative of the PG: scale armor, oval scutae, and neo-attic helmets. The Emperors routinely took their Praetorians on campaign, further clouding the issue.

Images of pteruge-clad [segmentata-wearing] soldiers that can be definitively identified as legionaries, and NOT Praetorians, are fairly non-existent on 1st-2nd Century representational evidence, IMO.

The dearth of evidence about this particular uniform item allows us as legionary reenactors some leeway, though.

Gil / Valerius, LXF

The Adamklissi soldiers aren't praetorians, they're common rank and file...

There are better pictures than this out there, but these illustrate the point:





@ Julius Valerius: Did you see my question about the glueing of the cut pteryges on the fan pattern?

Vale,