Shield patterns, symbols and paintings?

[Tarbicus]

The Mainz pedestals show wings on a scutum (or is it a bird?), and corner gammas on another.

http://www.livius.org/a/germany/mainz/ka...ght_lm.JPG
http://www.agefotostock.com/en/Stock-Ima...E-87035650
http://www.livius.org/a/germany/mainz/ka...rch_lm.JPG

http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2008/08...-of-mainz/
http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2010/08...gionaries/

[Helvetus]

From certain pictures, I would say wings+umbo, from others bird, even phoenix :wink:

http://www.redrampant.com/2009/07/roman-shields.html

[Nathan Ross]

all these ubiquitous awful "wings and bolts" designs variations come because of the soldiers paid to be models for the Trajan Column, but as it is all we have "for sure", the majority of re-enactors go with it?

We don't know where the Trajan's column sculptors got their information from - but presumably they were working from plans and sketches, perhaps based on live models (you don't just start bashing into a huge stone column drum without a pretty clear idea of what you're doing!). Beyond that it's a mystery, and all sorts of theories have been put forward over the years.

But variations on the wings/thunderbolts design, shown on Trajan's Column and the Adamklissi reliefs, also turn up on grave stelae from the earlier principiate and the later 2nd century column of Marcus Aurelius (although the sculptors may have been taking their ideas from Trajan's version...), amongst other places. So there's support for its accuracy during at least the later 1st and earlier 2nd centuries. However, Trajan's column also shows some alternative legionary designs (the 'wreath' one, for example), and the Mainz bases provide another, so even at the apparent height of its popularity this design wasn't ubiquitous.

[Helvetus]

Thanks a lot for these precisions; I also found a few older threads on the subject where you give several others possible references I'll have to look at.

By "ubiquitous" I was more refering to the contemporary re-enactment scene

[Jori]

Tacitus, Histories, Book III, chapter 23 :

"A ballista of enormous size belonging to the Fifteenth legion began to do great harm to the Flavians' line with the huge stones that it hurled; and it would have caused wide destruction if it had not been for the splendid bravery of two soldiers, who, taking some shields from the dead and so disguising themselves, cut the ropes and springs of the machine."

It seems to me that a soldier could regognize his own unit just looking at a shield. Yes, maybe he could personalize it, but the main pattern should be kept.

[Helvetus]

Oh, I tend to agree, my interrogation is not motivated by the desire to stand out as an individual in a group, but rather by the graphical exploration promises of the design possibilities beyond the famous red scutum.