Show here your Roman soldier impression

[Antonia Auriga]

OMG! I'm finally going to post some of my photos as "spunky recruit" Quintus Antonius of Legio VI VPF in 122 AD in Euboricum, Brittania. I only planned on wearing this at Lafe 2009, but since then I've been able to wear it at several other events after a lot of research and work, the caveat being that I have to look manly, which works as long as I have my helmet on. I make up for it with my good marching and knowledge of Latin commands. I made all of my soft kit and inherited my fiancee's old beltaeus, gladius and baldric. I'm currently borrowing lorica segmentata from our centurio. I got my hob nails from Cult of Athena, the only place that carried a men's 6.5. I chose to wear heavy wool socks for two reasons- we are stationed at Hadrian's wall and it's cold and I happen to have a very large tattoo, affectionately called 'gangerene,' on my right calf. Everything is a little big on me, to hide my womanly features, but I play that up by coming off as fresh meat with hand-me-downs from my older, successful brothers in the army as well. I have a Deepeka helmet, my own pilum and a second very sharp Republican gladius from Spain that hangs off my bedpost, just in case. I love that one, but we have to dull all of our weapons for our events and I just don't have the heart to do it. : )

Right now, my own lorica segmentata is happily rusting away in a bucket... This one will fit me, but I've gotten to a point where I've done all of the cutting, grinding and sanding and now need help doing the rivets and the leather work, but the guys that are helping with it have been too busy to do it and I'm too polite to bug them about it. It's a Corbridge B, of which nobody else currently has in the group! I'm very excited about it, can't wait until it's done. I would also like to have my own shield, preferably a lighter one (I can carry the big ones, but I have fibromyalgia and carrying the 18-20 pounders gives me shoulder pain flare ups). I just got this beautiful set of cranberry pturgies, too. I'm thinking of making a musculata to go with them for a homage to Fulvia, much maligned by her husband Mark Antony, who took up armor and hit the streets in protest. Then I can be a girl in armor and have the history to back it up. : )

I also am a priestess of Bellona. That's a fun position, since I get to travel with the army and am always on hand for the centurio in the morning's drill to do bird augeries and later in the day I've performed liver readings and sacrifices in front of the troops for our tribune. I really enjoy doing that for our more "PC" events since I can still be around the army (my main interest) and perform a woman's job. Sorry, no pics yet.

Here's a pic of my fiancee Marcus Valerius Brutus (Brandon Barnes) our awesome tessararius and soon to be tribune (we had a Roman wedding at this year's Ft. MacArthur event and will repeat it for real on July 30th, 2010). This was where the leather on the inside of the armor on the shoulder piece and body broke and the metal actually cut me. Luckily the silly thing was made of stainless steel, so I didn't have to worry about tetnus shoots. Sorry it's a link- I don't have any photo editing on this computer and the pic is big...

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And here's a pic from Lafe, when I got my first soldier's pay. I was pretty proud to have survived the event and I never took my armor off (but I did for this part since we left afterwards and had to pack the armor beforehand). I also killed 4 Germans!



That's all for now...