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Plume/Crest Colors?
#3
Ave!
Polybius tells that legionaries (hastati, principes & triarii) of the Republican time had three feathers as their helmet crest. The colour of the plumes were either red purple or black. Red, black and white were the most common colours of crests and plumes in all times. White would be either pure white, as in white swan feathers, or off-white, natural colour of white horse hair.
All the crests were made either of horse hair or plumes, from a swan or from a goose. Natural colours of the materials are always suitable, like white, black and brown, or brownish red. I've heard that horse hair is difficult to dye, so non-normal colours like blue would be rare.
One fresco shows the war god Mars wearing a helmet with a central horse hair crest in purple, and side plumes in white. Purple would be a suitable crest colour for high ranking officers, probably for senatorial class, like legates and consuls, and then of course emperors in the imperial time.
Vegetius mentions the crista argentata (silvered crest) for centurions, but most likely the crest itself was not silvered, since how could the horse hair or feathers be silvered? It was rather the crest box, where the hair or plumes were attached, which was silvered. That was done so that soldiers would recognise their centurion in the battlefield more easily, by his shining crest. Raffaele D'Amato suggests that if the crest holder was silvered, the crest itself would be of white colour, to go with the silver. Many re-enactors have also painted their wooden crest holders with the same colour of the crest, like red.
Yellow was the colour of cavalry crests according to Arrian(us) at the second century. Maybe yellow crests were used in cavalry also in previous times.
It has been suggested that blue was the colour for marines' helmet crests (since it's the colour of the sea, and they used grey-blue tunics too), but this is not certain.


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Antonius Insulae (Sakari)
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Messages In This Thread
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Charles - 09-23-2013, 08:20 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Pavel AMELIANVS - 09-24-2013, 08:19 AM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Antonius Insulae - 09-24-2013, 11:02 AM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Flavivs Aetivs - 09-24-2013, 12:07 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Markus Montanvs - 09-24-2013, 07:28 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Charles - 09-24-2013, 08:39 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Markus Montanvs - 09-24-2013, 08:50 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Flavivs Aetivs - 09-24-2013, 09:49 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Caratacus - 09-30-2013, 10:46 PM
RE: Plume/Crest Colors? - by kyle1337 - 07-01-2020, 07:54 PM
RE: Plume/Crest Colors? - by Robert Vermaat - 07-03-2020, 05:51 PM
RE: Plume/Crest Colors? - by kyle1337 - 07-04-2020, 01:33 AM
RE: Plume/Crest Colors? - by Robert Vermaat - 07-04-2020, 03:32 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Nautius Maximus - 03-16-2014, 06:00 AM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by arminius - 03-16-2014, 10:19 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by arminius - 03-16-2014, 10:43 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Patrick - 03-16-2014, 11:35 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Athena Areias - 03-17-2014, 11:08 AM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Sempronius Densus - 03-17-2014, 12:26 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by arminius - 03-17-2014, 01:12 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Caratacus - 03-21-2014, 08:49 AM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Doc - 03-21-2014, 06:39 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by arminius - 03-22-2014, 12:33 AM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by Doc - 03-22-2014, 01:48 PM
Plume/Crest Colors? - by arminius - 03-22-2014, 07:45 PM

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