Legionaries different uniform/armour colour scheme

[Jack]

Hi all
I have been looking through various forums, sites etc. for the answer to one simple question. Why did some cohorts/ legions have different colored shields/tunics? For instance when watching Roman-based movies the majority of legionaries one will see have the usual red tunic underneath a suit of (usually) steel armor along with the famous rectangular shield (also red). But what gets me is that in various scenes, for instance in Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator' the opening scene is an array of roman troops lining up for a battle in modern day-Germany all legionaries seen are in the classic red-uniform and yet when the scene moves to a member of the Sennett( Marcus Aurelius)who happens to be over watching the preparation for battle, he is being guarded by a group of legionaries who are wearing the same steel armor as the others, but their shield and tunic are of a royal blue sort of color.
For example:
[attachment=8109]legionary-segmentata-01.jpg[/attachment]

This gets me all the time, why are these Legionaries wearing blue? This repeats itself regularly, sometimes the soldiers are in white, and in one instance purple.
Why is this?

Kind regards, Jack

[jvrjenivs]

'cause it's hollywood and it has little to do with the historical picture.
To be clear. We know that in the later Roman period the units did indeed have a uniform shield emblem (from the Notitia dignitatum). For the earlier times (as far as I know) we don't know that for sure. As for tunic colour, IMHO units didn't have a uniform use of tunic fabric at all. Best get to the sources, of which you can get an overview in Graham Sumners 'Roman military dress'. Graham is one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to textiles in the imperial Roman army and did some very good research for the book. Highly recommended.

[Pointer]

It can be difficult on all levels to "De-Hollywoodize" our thinking when it comes to anything Roman. In that same movie, the Praetorian Guards were all dressed in Black. Its like all good cowboys wear white hats and the bad cowboys are in black. This is the director's "Artist License" to create a feeling or a character or a scene. He sets the mood with his palette of colors and whatever his budget will allow. Like in the movie Gettysburg, they used fireworks (Rockets)

[Caratacus]

Hi all
I have been looking through various forums, sites etc. for the answer to one simple question. Why did some cohorts/ legions have different colored shields/tunics? For instance when watching Roman-based movies the majority of legionaries one will see have the usual red tunic underneath a suit of (usually) steel armor along with the famous rectangular shield (also red). But what gets me is that in various scenes, for instance in Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator' the opening scene is an array of roman troops lining up for a battle in modern day-Germany all legionaries seen are in the classic red-uniform and yet when the scene moves to a member of the Sennett( Marcus Aurelius)who happens to be over watching the preparation for battle, he is being guarded by a group of legionaries who are wearing the same steel armor as the others, but their shield and tunic are of a royal blue sort of colour.

As has been said, you are quoting Hollywood here, which bears absolutely no resemblance to reality. There was a book published a few years back (whose title I forget) that took a look at why Hollywood does what it does to the Roman epic. The author advanced the idea that when these pictures were made (things like "The Robe" and "Spartacus"), America was at the height of the McCarthy "red-under-the-beds" era. "Red" = Communism (bad guys) and in these pictures the Romans were the 'bad guys', so got dressed in red tunics as a result. Well, it's a nice theory anyway.

We know from Trajan's column that the Roman legions certainly did sport different shield blazons. Much effort has been expended on trying to decide which legion had which design - generally without much success as far as I can see. We also know from the Notitia Dignitatum that in the 4th/5th century army every unit seemed to have a different shield device. In Tacitus there is a mention of an event in the 2nd Battle of Bedriacum (Cremona) where two soldiers picked up shields from an opposing unit and used these to get to a catapult that was causing them grief - implying that the shields were decorated in a specific way for the opposition unit.

As to the 'blue' colour for the tunics. At least three legions (I & II Adiutrix and X Fretensis) had naval connections (the first two being raised from the fleets at Ravenna and Misenum, while the Fretensis got its name from the channel between Italy and Sicily, indicating that it may have served as marines in anti-piracy operations, perhaps. Certainly one of the symbols for this legion was a galley). There are references to the fleet sailors being dressed in blue tunics (almost certainly dyed with woad - so definitely not the Royal Blue colour being worn by the re-enactor above).

I would surmise that the black colour of the tunics in "Gladiator" for the Praetorians (not to mention the 'Nuremburg Rally' scene when Commodus arrives back in Rome) were intended to give a fascist slant. More "Bad Guys" = Nazis = SS = Black uniforms. Well, if Ridley Scott can use Zulu war-chants for the Germanic tribes at the beginning of the film, why not, I ask myself?

The morale of the story is, clearly, take Hollywood with a large pinch of sodium chloride!

Mike Thomas
(Caratacus)

[AMELIANVS]

in Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator' the opening scene is an array of roman troops lining up for a battle in modern day-Germany all legionaries seen are in the classic red-uniform and yet when the scene moves to a member of the Sennett( Marcus Aurelius)who happens to be over watching the preparation for battle, he is being guarded by a group of legionaries who are wearing the same steel armor as the others, but their shield and tunic are of a royal blue sort of color.

1-Those soldiers around Marcus Aurelius are Praetorian gurdsman not legionaries .-)

2-Jack,best you can do is not conclude anything on the the basis of Hollywood(who didnt produce to date not even a single one movie which can be considered at least from 30%accurate) and instead read this Books:

[Graham Sumner]

Although Hollywood gets the blame for creating the image of the Romans in red tunics and it has almost become a myth in its own right, in fact in many classic movies they do not wear red tunics at all, although red is often prominent.

For example.

Quo Vadis. Legionaries: white tunics, red trim; Praetorians: black tunics.
The Robe. Legionaries: blue tunics, red cloaks; Praetorians: white tunics, red trim, crimson cloaks.
Ben-Hur. Legionaries: white tunics, red trim.
Spartacus Legionaries: a few have red tunics in the opening scenes but the majority have beige tunics.
Cleopatra. Legionaries: red tunics. Praetorians (?): red tunics and cloaks

As mentioned in the more recent Gladiator the legionaries have red tunics while the Praetorians are dressed in black. the colour of the latter was a deliberate effort to make them look like the SS. The same must be said of Quo Vadis too and you only have to look at Nero's salute on the balcony, which is the same as Hitler's lazy version of the nazi salute to see what the film makers were hinting at. After all the film was made only a few years after WW2. There is however no evidence that Praetorians ever dressed in black.

Equally there is no evidence first century legionaries dressed in blue and even if there was, it would be very unlikely that it would be royal blue. Most likely it would be a pale grey blue colour as Mike has suggested.

Most soldiers are depicted in Roman sources in what today we would call an undress uniform of tunic and cloak with perhaps side-arms and /or a spear. The most common colour combination was a white tunic with yellow brown cloak. There are other sources which illustrate white, red, pale purple and blue cloaks. I would suspect that most of the coloured cloaks belonged to officers of some kind.

The image of Romans in red can be traced right back through artistic images from the nineteenth century back through the Renaissance to Byzantine art and further back to Roman art. In 'Roman Military Dress', I listed all the Roman sources I could find which dealt with clothing in general and colour in particular.

Archaeological finds are much rarer but again seem to confirm that although the Romans were quite capable of producing a variety of colour shades those in a military context so far appear to be either un-dyed or reddish.

Graham.

[Crispvs]

As someone in the same group as the man pictured above, I think it might be appropriate for me to make a point or two.

Firstly, with regards to the use of the blue tunic. Although it is often stated as if it were a fact that Roman sailors/marines wore blue tunics, I believe I am correct in thinking that the only references to this are a mention of S. Pompeius wearing a blue naval cloak (but see below on cloaks) and a statement by Vegetius that sailors of the Classis Brittannicae painted their ships and sails in 'Venecian blue' and wore tunics of the same colour. There are two points to be made with regard to this statement. Firstly we do not know what period he is talking about - it may have been then case for hundreds of years or it could have been for less than a decade. It could have been centuries before he wrote or it could have been contemporary with him. We just don't know. Secondly, it is almost certainly significant that he refers specifically to the British fleet, as this in itself suggests that the practice was not followed by any of the other fleets. On that front it might be instructive to note that one of the few surviving grave stelae which retains any of its paint, and dating to the late second or early third century AD, shows a sailor/marine of the Misenum fleet wearing a red tunic, meaning that Vegetius' statement about blue tunics is either localised or only covering a limited period of time, or both. Moving away slightly from sailors now, the position that pale blue on certain fresco and mosaic depicions of tunics is in fact shading on depictions of white tunics is a legitimate one, and certainly matches with established modern painting practices, as Graham as an artist knows well. However, despite that being undeniably the case, it remains possible that the ancient artists really did intend to depict pale blue clothing.

Secondly, on the matter of dyed fabric, as Graham has often pointed out, it is generally impossible to determine what sort of item a surviving fragment of cloth originally came from, so the ratio of dyed to apparently undyed cloth fragments from sites is not as helpful as it may seem for determining the colour of clothing. Added to that is the issue that some dyestuffs may be impossible to detect 1800 years later and so it is possible that some apparently undyed fragments may once have been coloured, although in what shade we might never know. It is also worth remembering that undyed wool can naturally occur in a variety of shades, from creamy white and grey to dark brown and nearly black. Thus 'undyed' wool, might have been any of many shades of the white to deep brown colour spectrum.

Thirdly, as Graham has also often mentioned, while a great deal of evidence for late Roman clothing has survived, nothing like the same level of evidence can be found for the clothing of earlier periods. As the list that Graham helpfully included in RMC1 showed, most of the definite colour evidence from the first century BC and the first two centuries AD refers to cloaks, with references to tunic colour being far harder to find and often contentious. It seams likely that there was some sort of established 'language' of cloak colours (which is lost to us unfortunately) but whether this also applied to tunics in this earlier period is open to question. It may even be that there simply was no established colour for military tunics during this earlier period, an idea supported by Suetonius (Vita Dive Augustae 24.2) when he says that soldiers guilty of minor offenses should be made to stand outside the headquarters building without their belts, which would simultaneously deprive them of the signs of military status. These must be the belts themselves and the fact that the belts allowed the tunic to be hitched up to show the soldier's knees. Had there been an established military colour the miscreant soldiers would still retain a sign of military status. Arguments to the effect that peacetime tunics were white (and thus the same as civilian tunics) and wartime tunics red seem to me to be rather too heavily influenced by Fuentes' discredited article.

With all this in mind, and as the group potentially most directly affected by new colour evidence, we considered very carefully how we should go forward after RMC1 came out. Recognising that Graham's observations that there were a number of seemingly undeniable depictions of apparently off duty soldiers in white tunics, most of us obtained white or undyed tunics, often decorated with blue clavi, as well as sashes over the next few months, and that is how you will generally see us these days at social events or if we are in kit at the pub or beer tent after the public has gone away.
We debated whether or not we should stay in blue tunics and ended up agreeing a position that as we did not believe that the Romans of the mid first century AD would have bought into our modern notion of uniforms, and as there remained the possibility both that some apparently undyed fabric fragments might possibly have been dyed with woad and that depictions on such things as the Palestrina mosaic did not preclude the possibility of blue tunics, the use of blue tunics in a mid first century AD contest was an acceptable possibility. As the identification of blue as a naval colour was contentious we agreed that we would stay in blue, as it often provides an excellent starting point for discussions with members of the public about how much we really know about the Romans.

Finally though, I should address the issue of the shade of blue shown in the photograph. In fact, in keeping with a rejection of the idea of a 'uniform' as such, our tunics vary in shade. For a number of years though, many members of the group could be seen wearing an apparently uniform shade of strong royal blue. This was a consequence of the very generous gift to us a few years back of an almost complete bolt of woollen material in this shade, which meant that for a number of years we were able to outfit both new and existing members with new tunics at a negligible personal cost. Once the material ran out we all went back to buying our own material, so other shades of blue started to be seen again. A number of us always felt that such a strong colour was unlikely to be accurate, so my own tunic is more grey-blue in colour and we actively encourage the use of paler or more grey-blue shades. Admittedly some of the more dogmatic types still stick to the strong blue but the mix of shades is now much more apparent.
As for my friend in the photo, I do not recall his tunic being such a strong shade of blue and it may be that the photo has been 'enhanced'. I myself, have grown very weary of discovering pictures of me on Flickr and the like with the grey-blue colour of my tunic modified into various shades of 'electric blue'. I do make comment but my comments are invariably removed by moderators who favour comments which compliment the posters on the lovely shades of blue they have achieved.

Crispvs

[john m roberts]

Moviemakers are often concerned with not confusing the audience. They know that most audience members will know little to nothing about ancient Roman soldiers, but they are used to modern soldiers wearing distinctive uniforms. Thus moviemakers usually show all Roman soldiers of a particular unit equipped identically and, especially when two different Roman armies are fighting one another (as when Antony and Octavian are shown having their little spats) they will be wearing differing equipment and colors. This is for understandable theatrical reasons. Most modern audience members, shown two legionaries, one in mail with a bronze helmet, the other in segmentata and an iron helmet, will assume these must be in different armies when in fact they might well be tentmates. We must allow moviemakers a little leeway in these matters.

[Graham Sumner]

Paul has raised some interesting points although I do not totally agree with all of what he has said. Years ago it would have been possible to counter some of his arguments with the few scraps of evidence available, even so they could easily have been deemed selective. Nowadays I would find myself scanning in large chunks of my own books which I know Paul already has anyway.

I can however address some issues but firstly some background information might be deemed relevant.

The Ermine Street Guard (ESG) was founded in 1972. When they first paraded before the public they wore blue tunics!! I have seen the incriminating film footage and an early photograph was even published in an article in SKIRMISH magazine dealing with the Guard history. Within a few years the Guard had met H.Russell Robinson and their kit radically changed as a result including the tunics which became red. Robinson's recently published book The Armour of Imperial Rome had included re-constructions of some of his armour on models wearing red tunics as well as paintings by Peter Connolly which also showed legionaries in red tunics although no evidence was presented for such a choice and clothing was not discussed in the publication.

By the time I had joined the ESG in 1984 some former members of the society had already left to form The Roman Military Research Society (RMRS). Paul may correct me but it was always my impression that the RMRS choose to wear blue tunics so they would not be confused with the ESG. Whatever the reason both groups were equally entitled to select whatever colour they liked, simply because at that time there was literally no published material that could be consulted on the matter.

(Here I have added the following text from my talk at the last Roman Army school in April 2013 amended slightly for the readers here, so apologies for the caps!)

"THE CLOTHING OF THE ROMAN SOLDIER HAS BY COMPARISON WITH OTHER ASPECTS OF THE ARMY BEEN POORLY STUDIED. THE STANDARD INTRODUCTORY WORKS ON THE ROMAN ARMY IN ENGLISH, BY GRAHAM WEBSTER AND IN FRENCH BY YANN LE BOHEC, WILL SERVE TO ILLUSTRATE THE ALMOST CHEERFUL INDIFFERENCE TO CLOTHING IN POPULAR PUBLICATIONS.

WEBSTER BRIEFLY MENTIONED THAT SOLDIERS WORE A LINEN UNDERGARMENT WITH A SHORT SLEEVED WOOL TUNIC OVER IT. HE HIMSELF DID NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND HOW THE TUNIC WAS ARRANGED AND SUGGESTED THAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN HELD TOGETHER BY BROOCHES. HE DID NOT DISCUSS THE LONG SLEEVED TUNICS OF THE THIRD CENTURY OR LATER, NEITHER DID HE MENTION THE INTRODUCTION OF TROUSERS.

LE BOHEC ALSO HAD LITTLE TO SAY ABOUT CLOTHING AND EVEN STATED THAT THE ANSWER TO SOLDIERS DRESS ‘WAS NOT OBVIOUS’. STUDENTS OF CLOTHING WOULD BE FURTHER CONFUSED BY HIS DECISION TO PLACE HIS BRIEF DISCUSSION ON THE SUBJECT INTO HIS CHAPTER ON TACTICS!

NEITHER PUBLICATION SHOWED ANY ILLUSTRATIONS OF CLOTHING OR TEXTILE FINDS OR MADE ANY REFERENCE TO THEM. EQUALLY THERE WAS NO MENTION OF THE CHANGES IN FASHION WHICH TOOK PLACE THROUGHOUT THE ROMAN PERIOD EQUALLY COMPARABLE TO THE CHANGES IN EQUIPMENT WEAPONS OR TACTICS EMPLOYED BY THE ROMANS.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS HAVE ADDED LITTLE MORE. FOR INSTANCE THE LARGE 600 PAGE VOLUME ‘A COMPANION TO THE ROMAN ARMY’ EDITED BY PAUL ERDKAMP DEVOTES LITTLE MORE THAN A SINGLE PARAGRAPH TO CLOTHING! IN THE WORDS OF ONE CONTRIBUTOR JAMES THORNE” THE EVIDENCE FOR MILITARY CLOTHING....... IS PROBLEMATIC!”

IT IS NOT SURPRISING THEREFORE THAT WHEN IT CAME TO RECONSTRUCTING THE FORM OF THE TUNIC ITSELF, THE EARLIEST RE-ENACTORS DREW HEAVILY UPON ROMAN SCULPTURES, SUCH AS THE ARCH OF TITUS BUT ESPECIALLY TRAJAN’S COLUMN, RATHER THAN RELY ON ANY ACADEMIC SOURCES. INDEED IT IS FAIR TO SAY THAT RE-ENACTORS THEMSELVES HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR MOST OF THE PUBLISHED WORK ON THIS SUBJECTS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE EXCELLENT SUMMARIES BY PERIOD IN 'ROMAN MILITARY EQUIPMENT' BY MIKE BISHOP AND JON COULSTON.

FROM EVIDENCE SUCH AS SCULPTURE IT WAS DEDUCED THAT THE FORM OF THE TUNIC WAS LIKE AN ENLARGED ‘T’ SHIRT. THIS BECAME THE STANDARD TUNIC SHAPE, WORN BY GENERATIONS OF RE-ENACTORS. HOWEVER THIS WAS CLEARLY NOT THE SAME TUNIC STYLE WORN ON MANY TOMBSTONES DATING FROM THE FIRST CENTURY AD, FOUND IN GERMANY. THIS SHOWS A VERY DISTINCTIVE DRAPED STYLE. EQUALLY IT WAS NOT THE LONG SLEEVED GARMENT THAT BECAME POPULAR FROM THE EARLY THIRD CENTURY ONWARDS.

FURTHERMORE IT TRANSPIRES THAT THE STANDARD EARLY IMPERIAL TUNIC APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN A FAR MORE BASIC SHAPE. IN EFFECT TWO RECTANGULAR PIECES OF MATERIAL THAT WERE SEWN TOGETHER AND DECORATED WITH SIMPLE STRIPES KNOWN AS CLAVI. THIS TUNIC WAS WIDER THAN IT WAS LONG AND REQUIRED GATHERING AT THE WAIST BY EITHER A FABRIC BAND OR A LEATHER BELT OR A COMBINATION OF BOTH. STILL IT IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND WHY TWO PIECES OF CLOTH SEWN TOGETHER PUZZLED SOME SCHOLARS FOR SO LONG!

THERE IS ALSO THE POSSIBILITY THAT A SECONDARY BELT WAS UTILIZED. THIS WAS IDENTIFIED BY THE FORMER ESG RE-ENACTOR NICHOLAS FUENTES WHO SUGGESTED THAT THE PURPOSE OF THIS BELT WAS TO STOP SURPLUS MATERIAL LEFT UNDER THE ARMS, INTERFERING WITH THE SWORD BELT. THIS IS SHOWN IN THE CHATSWORTH RELEF, WHICH DEPICTS PRAETORIAN GUARDS DURING THE REIGN OF HADRIAN. FINALLY THE SURPLUS MATERIAL AROUND THE NECK WAS GATHERED TOGETHER AND TIED IN A KNOT AT THE NAPE OF THE NECK, VISIBLE IN BOTH THE CHATSWORTH RELEF AND IN SEVERAL SCENES ON TRAJAN’S COLUMN ITSELF.

FUENTES CORRECTLY CONCLUDED THAT TUNICS DURING THE EARLY EMPIRE WERE MADE OF TWO SHEETS OF WOOL MATERIAL AND HE WAS ALSO THE FIRST TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUE OF CLOTHING COLOUR IN ANY DETAIL. HE EXAMINED EIGHTEEN PIECES OF SOURCE MATERIAL OF VARIOUS KINDS INCLUDING WALL PAINTINGS AND MOSAICS FROM THE REPUBLIC TO THE LATE EMPIRE AND ARGUED THAT THE STANDARD COLOUR FOR ALL SOLDIERS TUNICS WAS WHITE, APART FROM CENTURIONS WHO WORE RED. HIS WORK WAS PUBLISHED IN THE 'JOURNAL OF ROMAN MILITARY EQUIPMENT STUDIES' (JRMES) IN 1987.

THE LATTER CERTAINLY CAUSED AND CONTINUES TO CAUSE, A LOT OF CONTROVERSY AND DIVISION AMONGST THE RE-ENACTMENT COMMUNITY. DAN PETERSON FOR EXAMPLE WAS VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED TO THE THEORY BUT IT WAS TAKEN ON BOARD BY THE NEWLY FORMED LEGIO II AUGUSTA.

EQUALLY MANY PUBLICATIONS CLEARLY ACCEPTED THE THEORY, ALTHOUGH TWO POINTS MUST BE OBVIOUS. FIRSTLY, THERE IS FAR MORE EVIDENCE FOR CLOTHING COLOUR THAN THE EIGHTEEN EXAMPLES GIVEN BY FUENTES. FOR EXAMPLE HE DID NOT MENTION OF ANY OF THE SURVIVING PORTRAITS OF SOLDIERS FROM EGYPT.

IN MY FIRST TWO BOOKS 'ROMAN MILITARY CLOTHING 1&2' PUBLISHED IN 2002-3, I DESCRIBED 60 EXAMPLES AND BY THE PUBLICATION OF MY LAST VOLUME ON THE SUBJECT, 'ROMAN MILITARY DRESS' 2009, I CITED NEARLY 150 EXAMPLES.

SECONDLY HIS DESCRIPTION OF THE TUNIC AS BEING LONG AND NARROW WAS CLEARLY A MISINTERPRETATION OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE, CHIEFLY THE NAHAL HEVER COLLECTION OF TUNICS FROM ISRAEL WHICH ARE BROAD AND WIDE. THIS WAS DUE TO THE WAY IN WHICH THE TUNIC SHEETS WERE DRAWN IN THE PUBLICATION. IF THERE WERE TWO SHEETS SURVIVING TOGETHER THEY WERE DRAWN HORIZONTALLY, AS WORN BUT IF ONLY A SINGLE SHEET SURVIVED IT WAS DRAWN VERTICALLY, WHICH MEANT THE CLAVI WENT FROM SIDE TO SIDE AND NOT UP AND DOWN!

THE CONTINUED REPRESENTATION OF EITHER A RED OR A WHITE TUNIC THROUGHOUT ROMAN ART OR WRITTEN SOURCES LED ME TO PROPOSE THAT IN THE EARLY PRINCIPATE ROMAN SOLDIERS WORE OFF WHITE OR UNDYED TUNICS FOR EVERYDAY WEAR, RED TUNICS FOR BATTLE-DRESS AND SPECIALLY BLEACHED TUNICS FOR PARADE DRESS. THIS WAS BASED ON MY INTERPRETATION OF THE EVIDENCE AND NOT ON THE THEORY BY FUENTES.

SO IT WAS QUITE GRATIFYING TO COMPARE THIS WITH THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR DYED CLOTHING FROM THE SAME PERIOD FROM THE MILITARY SITE OF DYDYMOI IN EGYPT THAT WAS PUBLISHED SHORTLY AFTERWARDS.

PAUL IS CORRECT IN STATING THAT IN NORTHERN EUROPE MOST TEXTILE FINDS ARE SIMPLY VERY SMALL FRAGMENTS MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO STATE WITH ANY CERTAINTY WHAT THE ORIGINAL GARMENT MAY HAVE BEEN. EQUALLY IT IS ALSO VERY HARD TO DETERMINE WHAT THE ORIGINAL COLOUR WAS IF INDEED THEY HAD BEEN DYED AT ALL. HOWEVER IN EGYPT THE EVIDENCE CAN BE MUCH MORE ENLIGHTENING. MOST OF THE TEXTILE FRAGMENTS AT DYDYMOI IDENTIFIED AS TUNICS WITH SURVIVING CLAVI ,WERE EITHER UNDYED, OFF WHITE, BEIGE, OR HAD BEEN DYED RED!

Paul you will be pleased to hear though that there was at least one un-dyed tunic at Dydimoi which had blue clavi!

As an Archaeological illustrator I aim in my publications to be as impartial as possible and did not begin with any theory in mind, simply to present the evidence as I found it to the best of my ability. The issue had been raised itself within the ESG and I was therefore as keen as anyone to discover the truth.However it is probably fair to say that my own work was not greeted with any enthusiasm by the RMRS sadly no doubt due to my connections with the ESG and their review of my first book on their website is less than complimentary.

Paul is again correct that the cloaks are more interesting and indeed together with tunics they have been the subject of my latest research which I have presented this year at 'The Roman Army School' in Durham, The 'RAT' conference in Regensburg and this month at the 'Textiles from the Nile Valley conference' in Antwerp, kindly read out for me by Felicity Wild, wife of John Peter Wild. The latter proceedings are published bi-annually and it is my intention to write and illustrate my article for the next publication.

Graham.