Blue Uniforms?

[Primus Pilus]

Greetings, I was just wondering if the roman army ever wore blue uniforms? And if they did, why? was it some kind of special division of the roman army or was it just their winter uniform. I am researching for a preposed novel so any help with this situation would be kindly accepted.

[PhilusEstilius]

I would think that you need to contact the XIIII Gemina legion or the RMRS for they indeed have this colour and I'm sure they will give you there reasons why.
I would also point out that you need to give your name at the end of your posts.

[Primus Pilus]

My apologies for the name, thankyou for the information.

___________________
Conor Maher

[Primus Pilus]

I just realised something, Mr stobbs, you said XIIII Gemina legion. Did you mean XIV? Or XIII? Or in fact XIIII? I have researched XIIII Gemina legion with no blue uniforms as of yet. By Contact, do you mean physically contact them as in ask them? and if so how? Thankyou.

__________________________
Conor Maher

[jvrjenivs]

The 14th (XIIII GMV) you can find here: [url:3e2l9s9z]http://www.romanarmy.net/[/url] and yes, by contacting them I think he means you should send them an email, although RAT has members of them on the board.

[Primus Pilus]

Good news! Thankyou to all for your help by the way. I have found on the RMRS website that blue tunics were worn by the legionarii soldiers, who were not always romans, possibly not even italians. They were actually the elite, as I thought, it says here; "Tough, hard-bitten citizen soldiers who collectively formed the heavy infantry responsible for winning and holding the greatest Empire the world had ever seen." That answers my question very fully indeed. Thankyou for all of your help. If I am in need of any other information I now know where to come! Thankyou again, I bid you goodday.

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Conor Maher

[Matthew Amt]

I have found on the RMRS website that blue tunics were worn by the legionarii soldiers, who were not always romans, possibly not even italians. They were actually the elite, as I thought, it says here; "Tough, hard-bitten citizen soldiers who collectively formed the heavy infantry responsible for winning and holding the greatest Empire the world had ever seen."...

Um, that's a kind of over-simplified summary. Blue tunics are certainly worn by that reenactment unit and by others as well, but the whole concept of "uniform" is not as clear-cut as one might think. There are many discussions about that here on RAT! Get a couple of Graham Sumner's books, for starters.

Legionaries were indeed "Romans" since (in general!) they had the status of Roman citizenship. But it is true that by the first century AD many of them were not Italian-born but were provincials, from Gaul or elsewhere, and might never have visted Italy or Rome at all. Auxiliary troops were usually recruited from non-citizens, though of course they were a regular part of the Roman army and we still think of them as "Romans". And I expect they did, too! We tend to think of legionaries as elites and well-trained, and again that is generally (probably!) true, but auxiliary cavalry seems to have held a higher status in some ways.

So be careful of brief generalizations! Including mine. Vale,

Matthew

[PhilusEstilius]

Indeed as Matthew has pointed out uniform is not so straight forward as we might think, and as far as tunic colours this is a debate that has gone on for years now and I'm sure will continue for many more.
I would of course agree about the Cavalry for when we study these Soldiers we find that the Legions could not indeed have functioned without them.

[Primus Pilus]

Yes, I see that now, Please bear with me as I know next to nothing of this subject!

[A_Volpe]

There is some theories that Naval units, or Infantry units (Auxiliaries) that were made up of 'marines' wore blue colored tunics, or had blue colored shields to represent their connection to the sea.

Of course, what shade of "blue" will probably never be known.

Unfortunately I don't have any references to the blue colored (tunic) available at the moment. I believe there are mentions in Osprey's "Roman Legionary 58 BC - AD 69" Warrior 71, plate A shows a proposed soldier of XII Antiqua - Their caption mentions that Vegetius recommended Marines wearing blue (Epitome 4.37)

[Graham Sumner]

I agree with Matthew's comments and think he also used the words 'record' and 'old' in relation to this topic on another thread!

All the evidence I found up to 2002 on clothing colours was published in Roman Military Clothing 1 & 2 published by Osprey. Too much to include in a post here! Otherwise you fall into the trap of being selective.

Everything I have found since then or with help from fellow RAT'ers including Raffaele D'Amato, plus inevitable revisions and ammendments is due to be published in a matter of weeks by the History Press in a book called 'Roman Military Dress'. All this colour evidence is published with both ancient sources and references to modern works. So you can read through it, look for the evidence yourself and arrive at your own conclusions. As before I tried to remain impartial.

Sadly I found no evidence for first century legionaries in blue tunics. However there are later sources for blue tunics, including the famous quote from Vegetius, relating to sailors of the British Fleet. Although Vegetius say's the blue is to match the sea he adds additional information which tends to get overlooked, for example in the review of my book on the RMRS website. The colour is 'Venetian', therefore the same shade as the blue circus faction. So look at chariot drivers for the blues.

There is more than a couple of pieces of evidence for connecting blue with the navy but again remember that a tombstone of a marine had traces of red paint on the cloak and tunic and recent research by Raffaele D'Amato has revealed that the Herculaneum soldier, possibly also a marine, was discovered with traces of orange red wool on his body. Again both of these finds are touched upon in the forthcoming publication. However if you want to see a reconstruction now of the Herculaneum Marine, plus Raffaele's article get the latest copy of Ancient Warfare via Jasper!

So we now have archaeological, literary and iconographic evidence for a certain colour worn by Roman soldiers. There is also plenty of circumstantial evidence that Romans and soldiers in particular also favoured this colour.
Does that make it case closed? Well I am sure that there will be those who disagree with both my own conclusions and can or will interpret the evidence I have presented in alternative ways. Plus there are also new discoveries being made and published all the time, so I am sure this thread will run and run!

Graham.

[Tarbicus]

Is it right that the Herculaneum soldier is now known to have been wearing a red tunic when Vesuvius blew?

[Graham Sumner]

Is it right that the Herculaneum soldier is now known to have been wearing a red tunic when Vesuvius blew?

See the post above your last message Jim!

He had traces of orange red wool on his body, does that make a tunic?

Maybe it is jumping to conclusions a bit like the 'Roman soldier's' red 'tunic' from Masada you sometimes read about. That is in fact an isolated piece of wool about the size of a credit card. However in the case of the Herculaneum find, it was on a body and the body does appear to be that of a soldier - marine.

Graham.

[Tarbicus]

Sorry Graham, my bad.

Hurry up and get that book out :wink:

[Primus Pilus]

Thank you again for all your help, I have learnt that the roman army wore red tunics, but also wore blue, green, and about any other colour possible to dye. However Legionaries mainly wore blue and possibly marines even though some say otherwise on the marine issue. Also, that soldiers may have worn odd colours in groups making a multicoloured scene if ever was to see which may or may not look un-professional. Thank you once again for all of your extensive research and development and your help and advice on the subject.

Yours Scincerily
Conor Maher