First US Roman Marine Re-enactment Unit founded.

[Vindex]

Woad was expensive?

Depends on the type/fastness of colour

Depends on the cloth you're dyeing.

And if it was that cheap, everyone would be wearing it...

Edited to Add; BTW...wouldn't they be in green not blue?

[M. Demetrius]

Green seems like it would be easy to find as a dyestuff, because almost all leaves are green, but the chlorophyll is not color fast: it fades in sunlight. Greens were made from minerals, like copper (which had other, more in-demand uses) for the most part. We have tested quite a few natural dyes from things that grow around here, and found most of them fade out pretty quickly, and haven't found anything that makes a strong, green dye.

(Reasonably inexpensive dyes included blue, red, browns (some of these from nut husks), some yellows (pollen), and of course, other colors from whatever color of animal hair might be spun and woven. Black, brown, and grey wool was available from sheep/goats. Pure black dye for cloth was pretty well unknown until modern dyes were invented.)

[Crispvs]

I think it is worth reminding ourselves that Vegetius was not talking about just any old blue. He refers to a specific shade, known as 'Venetian' blue, which, as Nathan mentioned above, was a grey-blue.

A possibly relevant point here might be that not all shades of colour reflect light in equal measure, so if the object truly was to make scouting vessels stand out less then choosing a colour which is less bright is not a bad idea. Not of course that I am suggesting they would have gone through a great programme of experimentation to find the right shade - they already had a shade which seemed to fit the bill and therefore, if we accept Vegetius at face value, they decided to use that. The object might not even have been to be blue as opposed to be in a colour which was not very obvious which just happened to be a shade of blue.
I am not convinced, by the way, that the Romans would have understood 'Venetian' blue to be the same colour as the blue of the cloak Sextus Pompey wore several hundred years before Vegetius was writing.

Another point which I don't think anyone else has made so far (apologies if anyone has and I haven't noticed), is that unlike the Ravenna or Misenum fleets, which might well operate in the open blue water of the Mediterranean the scouting ships of the British fleet would be operating in the grey-blue water of the English Channel and the waters of British rivers. Now, the English channel may have staved off many invasions over the centuries, but the twenty one miles between Dover and Calais is not really very far and on a good day the French coast can be seen easily from Dover with the naked eye, standing up against the horizon. I have never been to Calais but I am sure the same applies in reverse. In this context, a ship with a darker or duller coloured sail would quite possibly be seen against the background of a darker landmass, which would make it far less obvious until it came reasonably close and its silhouette rose above that of the landmass behind. The same principle might apply when sailing close to the coast or along rivers, when a darker or duller sail would blend more easily into the background mass, especially on dark days or close to dusk.
The same might not apply in the Mediterranean where light levels are greater, hence the bluer colour of the water there, and where there is at least one piece of evidence for a marine wearing a red tunic.

When it comes to camouflaging ships on the open sea, there is very little which can be done which has any real effect, as the superstructure and sails (or in more recent times the funnels) stand up and create a silhouette on the horizon which cannot be hidden. Therefore in the past there was no reason not to paint ships in bright colours which advertised whose ships they were. However, during the Great War, with the new reality of aircraft dropped torpedoes and long range naval guns, the Admiralty looked for ways to try to hide ships at sea but concluded that due to silhouettes and sparks from funnels, it was impossible to hide them. Instead they decided to experiment with a principle which has guided the design of disruptive patterns ever since - if you cannot hide someone or something, break up its shape so either it no longer appears to be the shape it really is, or so it is impossible (in the case of ships) to accurately assess its direction or speed. Accordingly they commissioned artists to design patterns which would confuse the eye. These 'dazzle ship' patterns quickly spread to other navies as well.

http://www.viceland.com/music/wp-content...azzle1.jpg

http://thepigeonpost.files.wordpress.com...917291.jpg

http://static1.slamxhype.com/wp-content/...uflage.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/j0n6/5147009307/

This was though (and back to topic now), a recognition that you simply cannot hide a ship on the open sea. Against a background landmass however, might be a different thing, especially if light levels were not good.

As to whether or not the hulls might be painted, at sea, the swell of the waves can often hide the hull of a boat from the view of other ships, meaning that if your intention was concealment (which despite what I wrote above, I am still not totally convinced of) the hull would be less important than the sail.

Another point which I and others have already mentioned is the fact that we do not know the period Vegetius is referring to. The implication is that unlike the other fleets, the British fleet was the only one to adopt this practice, but that in itself does not get us much closer to knowing when or for how long. We might theorise that it was connected to Carausius, but the evidence for such a suggestion is lacking. All we know is that at some point prior to Vegetius' writing, the liburnae (but not other ships?) and clothing of some or all of the British fleet were of Venetian blue. That says nothing very useful about sailors and marines in general or even their ships, and gives no information to tell us whether or not it was anything more than a passing fad.

I am in agreement with Magnus' point that we cannot use the reported clothing of senior officers to draw inferences about how regular sailors/marines dressed.

Also like Magnus I have a blue tunic, a red tunic an off-white tunic with clavi and a check tunic with sleeves (oh - and a toga too).


"like those flashy red jackets you used to wear in the late 1770s "

Actually, red jackets were worn in the field until 1914 and are still in service for ceremonial and mess dress. :wink:
http://www.ifimages.com/photos/3vbNVROvT...London.jpg


Crispvs

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I Have a blue Tunic too, among other colours.
A woad dyed tunic, for what it's worth.
See my avatar!

Crisps, you don' require a landless behind you, although that helps,
Most ancient sea battles were fought near land anyway.

[Kai]

I am not convinced, by the way, that the Romans would have understood 'Venetian' blue to be the same colour as the blue of the cloak Sextus Pompey wore several hundred years before Vegetius was writing.

Well Venetian blue was worn by the chariot faction and their fans because it was the colour of the sea and thus sacred to Neptune, according to Tertullian. Sextus Pompeius wore blue because he fancied himself as son of Neptune. No one short of a time-machine will ever know if the shades of blue were identical, probably they were not, but intention to wear blue is more or less the same.

Another point which I and others have already mentioned is the fact that we do not know the period Vegetius is referring to. The implication is that unlike the other fleets, the British fleet was the only one to adopt this practice, but that in itself does not get us much closer to knowing when or for how long. We might theorise that it was connected to Carausius, but the evidence for such a suggestion is lacking. All we know is that at some point prior to Vegetius' writing, the liburnae (but not other ships?) and clothing of some or all of the British fleet were of Venetian blue. That says nothing very useful about sailors and marines in general or even their ships, and gives no information to tell us whether or not it was anything more than a passing fad.

Vegetius does not specify the fleet doing the scouting. Certainly the fleets on shores of the Black Sea, the Danube, and the Rhine had their share of scouting, although there is not much to conceal on a river. Invasions coming over these frontiers were extremely dangerous and Gothic fleets even crossed the Dardanelles, implying the Roman fleets were inferior in that time and region, which would again increase the need for camo and scouting. Considering the book offers a general outline of Roman naval strategy my suggestion is that it applies to every scout.
It may be possible in theory that the blue tunics were a passing fad, it being the colour of Neptune I think this is as likely as a Ferrari painted red being a passing fad only, though. (Please do not take that too literally )

regards

PS: I have a blue tunic too. My service dress was blue. And I guess I have a blue towel somewhere.

[PhilusEstilius]

Where do we get this idea of Venetian Blue for I don't think Venice had even come into being until the time of Attila, anyway is it the same colour that John, Keenan, and David are wearing in their earlier pictures or can someone please show just what it did look like.

[M. Demetrius]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/venetian+blue

Also, in De Bello Gallico, Book 3.8, Caesar mentions a seafaring tribe named the Veneti, which afaik, have nothing to connect them to the city of Venice. This writing predated Vegetius considerably, of course. One could presume the color of venetian blue could have originated there, not in NE Italy.