All 1st & 2nd Century A.D. Centurions please post a pic.

[Julius Verax]

Hi , I was wondering if I was allowed to ask if you would please post a pic in this thread if you do 1st or second A.D. centurion ? I hope this is within the rules of RAT to ask this on this forum .

I work at Arbeia Roman fort ( as well as other places ) as a Historical Interpreter . At the moment I do late first early second Century Optio but should be Julius Verax Centurion of the VI Legoin who were responsable fort the construction of Arbeia . I love seeing all your pics as it gives me a lot of Ideas to work on .

Any help would be great .

Thanks ,

Julius Verax .

[Magnus]

Hey Paul, I don't have any full shots of me as a centurion, just my individual gear...I can try and get one for yoy though over the next while, so long as you don't mind the pictures in my kitchen lol

[Julius Verax]

No mate , thats fine Cheers .

[jvrjenivs]

Cordvs/Wim van Broekhoven:




Me:

[Gaius_Calvus]

Here you go.

Myself, Alex Kyrychenko (signifer) and Rusty Myers (cornicen).

October 2008.

Regards,

Edge

[Marcus Mummius]

Our centurio, he will switch his armour to a squamata in the near future, though:

[Julius Verax]

Fantastic Lads , Thank you . Keep um coming ! Heres a quick question for you all .

Could a centurion wear Lorica Segmentata or is it not done ?


Julius .

[jvrjenivs]

We don't know. The depictions of the centurionate we have are mostly all with hamata or squamata (or at least no Segmentata), but some are saying that there isn't a reason why a (new) centurio could not (still) wear a segmentata. Why wouldn't he addopt that fancy new type of dress?

We also discussed this before (as we did with the wearing of phalerae over a seg). You should try the search function to read the discussions on this.

[Julius Verax]

I will , cheers .

[Gaius_Calvus]

Paul,

Good question, and we don't know, but what appears to be the case is that in all of the sculptural evidence in which we can identify a centurio, none of them appear to be wearing a lorica segmentata. It always seems that a hamata or squamata was preferred by the centurionate.

Regards,

Edge

[Julius Verax]

Yes I see . All the research Ive done supports what you say . Ive been reenacting for many years now and everyone has the same opinion as yours . Just wondering if it would work for reenacting , you know if it would be accepted or not .


Paul .

[M. CVRIVS ALEXANDER]

Paul,

If you look at the picture galleries at our site, www.11thlegion.com , you will find more pictures of Edge's excellent impression as a centurion.

[Julius Verax]

Alexander , I cant get the link to work but I will keep trying .

Thanks ,

Paul .

[rusty myers]

And a fellow Leg VI centurio at www.LEGVI.com

I still have not mastered the RAT image thing...

[Crispvs]

Actually, when we are talking about the armour of centuriones we are talking about a very small number of surviving figural depictions anyway.

For what it's worth here are the statistics:

Lorica Hamata (mail) 2 - M. Favonius Facilis and M. Caelius

Lorica Squamata (scale) 2 - Q. Sertorius Festus and T. Calidius Severus

Lorica Musculata (muscle cuiras) 1 - Unknown from Verona

In addition to this, the armour shown on the stele of M. Petronius Classicus is difficult to make out but could be mail.

Other than that we have Minucius Lorianus who is shown unarmoured but is in any case outside your timeframe.

So, in other words, whilst there is no depiction of a centurio of the period in segmentata, we have no more than two definite depictions of any other type of armour associated with centuriones of the period. This means really that the sample is in no way big enough to rule out the option of any one type of armour.
My personal feeling is that as centuriones were experienced soldiers who also earned at least fifteen times what most of their men earned it was probably up to them to decide what type of armour best suited them and if that was not what they already had then it would not have been hard for a centurio to have armour of the desired type made up for him. Each armour type has its own advantages and disadvantages and the centurio's experience would certainly have given him a good sense of which advantages outweighed which disadvantages in his case and he would have chosen his armour accordingly.

Crispvs