05-20-2005, 12:01 PM
Marsh,
first off, you are clearly prejudiced against the largest and most succesful reenactment period ever created, or you wouldn't address it as "Silly War". For the record, this has never been my favorite period. I do not spend a lot of time with it. I am quite happy to be a simple private in a generic mess with my friends, that joins the company and battalion we feel will offer us the most realistic and enjoyable living history experience for that particular event. We then make small modifications to our kit to represent that unit as authentically as possible.
I am trying to base a succesful Roman reenactment system on some similar, highly succesful reenactment system because in real life I am a historian, and this is what historians do. We look at past human activity to determine the best course for the future.
You are exactly right in comparing some reenactors with "cats", who refuse to be "led" by anyone but themselves. The reason why the SCA is so popular is that it is tailor-made for just such people. Everyone is their own "lord". It is a fantasy never-neverland which seldom appeals to historically minded reenactors who realize that real Medieval armies were also composed of lowborn foot soldiers. Even in Civil War reenacting we have the "cats" usually referred to as "farbs". They are guys who want to be a high ranking officer even if they have no soldiers (except maybe their best friend and brother-in-law). These subordinates carry the all-important unit flag which they believe justifies their calling their 3 man gaggle a "Regiment" - (which may seem hauntingly familar to many so-called Roman reenactment "legions" of similar composition. Of course, there is no place for the "cats" on the modern, ultra-authentic Civil War reenactment scene, but they hang around the battles so tourists can take their photographs and everyone is happy.
Understand Marsh, that no other 1st century group can claim with ANY historical proof that they truly represent another legion. Virtually all of them copy finds from locations largely unconnected with their selected unit, and merely fabricate a vexillia announcing they are a particular legion. It is completely pointless. As for believing most people will automatically choose a "British" 1st century scenario and want to represent LEG XX, that's nice, but LEG XIIII distinguished itself in Britain as well, PLUS also did great things on the Continent, giving a much larger base for potential barbarian reenactors. We have almost no excavated material from areas in which LEG XX was stationed, and therefore cannot be as accurate in its reconstruction as we can with LEG XIIII.
Bottom line: if there is ONE legion from most everyone's most favorite Roman period (middle 1st century), that we have a fair amount of evidence that we may reconstruct it with at lease some accuracy , then we should pick that one to do, so if there are only 100 Roman reenactors in the country, lets at least have them represent one or two accurate Roman centuries, legionary and auxilliary. If the particular scenario dictates this should be some other legion besides LWG XIIII, fine, we make a special vexilla for that particular event, but for the overall impression, people are investing their money in reconstructing the one legion in which we know quite a bit about their equipment, shield emblem, standards, etc. than picking a legion number out of a hat, with thier equipment, shield emblem etc a complete fabrication. Is this supposed to be historical reenactment for fantasy? If historical, lets avoid "making things up" as much a possible.
Robert, I personally like the late Roman period too, and in some respects think it will eventually have more potential for true large scale reenactment than the first century. It is far less expensive to obtain a complete kit for a late Roman, and more importantly, will probably appeal more to the potentially much larger reenactor base we must recruit to be the "enemies" (and allies) of the later Roman Empire. Realistically speaking, for every one Roman reenactor, there are probably at least 100 costumed, weapon wielding LARPs who inspired largely by Tolkien's fantasies set their "worlds" in something much akin to the dark ages, and therefore are already close to the Late Roman era. I think there should be a late Roman "branch" to this hobby, and I am actively building a late Roman unit as we speak (the whole reason I developed the late Roman Deepeeka products), but to many reenactors, these "immersion events" are a kind of time machine, where for fleeting moments everything falls into place, and looks "right", and you feel "you are there". People whose only reenactment experience is making a show to gawking tourists may never understand this. The point is, the bubble of authenticity will be burst if someone walks into that perfectly recreated scene who wears equipment 200 years too late. But you have my word, should you ever want to participate in a 1st century immersion event such as Lafe, I will loan you everything you need, and there is already talk of possibly doing late Roman events there too. But it is apples and oranges, and should not be mixed together at living history "immersion" events. It is fine for display events, and at these I bring all of my Roman gear, from the republic to late empire.
Dan
PS I do not know where some of you get these ideas about "me and red tunics". I have stated in published articles over 20 years ago that the Roman army wore many colors and that white was unquestionably the dress tunic worn without armor. I did happen stand up against one very influential though highly flawed article that stated that Roman soldiers ONLY wore white tunics in which the most convincing piece of evidence was not even Roman but Ptolemaic Egyptian!
first off, you are clearly prejudiced against the largest and most succesful reenactment period ever created, or you wouldn't address it as "Silly War". For the record, this has never been my favorite period. I do not spend a lot of time with it. I am quite happy to be a simple private in a generic mess with my friends, that joins the company and battalion we feel will offer us the most realistic and enjoyable living history experience for that particular event. We then make small modifications to our kit to represent that unit as authentically as possible.
I am trying to base a succesful Roman reenactment system on some similar, highly succesful reenactment system because in real life I am a historian, and this is what historians do. We look at past human activity to determine the best course for the future.
You are exactly right in comparing some reenactors with "cats", who refuse to be "led" by anyone but themselves. The reason why the SCA is so popular is that it is tailor-made for just such people. Everyone is their own "lord". It is a fantasy never-neverland which seldom appeals to historically minded reenactors who realize that real Medieval armies were also composed of lowborn foot soldiers. Even in Civil War reenacting we have the "cats" usually referred to as "farbs". They are guys who want to be a high ranking officer even if they have no soldiers (except maybe their best friend and brother-in-law). These subordinates carry the all-important unit flag which they believe justifies their calling their 3 man gaggle a "Regiment" - (which may seem hauntingly familar to many so-called Roman reenactment "legions" of similar composition. Of course, there is no place for the "cats" on the modern, ultra-authentic Civil War reenactment scene, but they hang around the battles so tourists can take their photographs and everyone is happy.
Understand Marsh, that no other 1st century group can claim with ANY historical proof that they truly represent another legion. Virtually all of them copy finds from locations largely unconnected with their selected unit, and merely fabricate a vexillia announcing they are a particular legion. It is completely pointless. As for believing most people will automatically choose a "British" 1st century scenario and want to represent LEG XX, that's nice, but LEG XIIII distinguished itself in Britain as well, PLUS also did great things on the Continent, giving a much larger base for potential barbarian reenactors. We have almost no excavated material from areas in which LEG XX was stationed, and therefore cannot be as accurate in its reconstruction as we can with LEG XIIII.
Bottom line: if there is ONE legion from most everyone's most favorite Roman period (middle 1st century), that we have a fair amount of evidence that we may reconstruct it with at lease some accuracy , then we should pick that one to do, so if there are only 100 Roman reenactors in the country, lets at least have them represent one or two accurate Roman centuries, legionary and auxilliary. If the particular scenario dictates this should be some other legion besides LWG XIIII, fine, we make a special vexilla for that particular event, but for the overall impression, people are investing their money in reconstructing the one legion in which we know quite a bit about their equipment, shield emblem, standards, etc. than picking a legion number out of a hat, with thier equipment, shield emblem etc a complete fabrication. Is this supposed to be historical reenactment for fantasy? If historical, lets avoid "making things up" as much a possible.
Robert, I personally like the late Roman period too, and in some respects think it will eventually have more potential for true large scale reenactment than the first century. It is far less expensive to obtain a complete kit for a late Roman, and more importantly, will probably appeal more to the potentially much larger reenactor base we must recruit to be the "enemies" (and allies) of the later Roman Empire. Realistically speaking, for every one Roman reenactor, there are probably at least 100 costumed, weapon wielding LARPs who inspired largely by Tolkien's fantasies set their "worlds" in something much akin to the dark ages, and therefore are already close to the Late Roman era. I think there should be a late Roman "branch" to this hobby, and I am actively building a late Roman unit as we speak (the whole reason I developed the late Roman Deepeeka products), but to many reenactors, these "immersion events" are a kind of time machine, where for fleeting moments everything falls into place, and looks "right", and you feel "you are there". People whose only reenactment experience is making a show to gawking tourists may never understand this. The point is, the bubble of authenticity will be burst if someone walks into that perfectly recreated scene who wears equipment 200 years too late. But you have my word, should you ever want to participate in a 1st century immersion event such as Lafe, I will loan you everything you need, and there is already talk of possibly doing late Roman events there too. But it is apples and oranges, and should not be mixed together at living history "immersion" events. It is fine for display events, and at these I bring all of my Roman gear, from the republic to late empire.
Dan
PS I do not know where some of you get these ideas about "me and red tunics". I have stated in published articles over 20 years ago that the Roman army wore many colors and that white was unquestionably the dress tunic worn without armor. I did happen stand up against one very influential though highly flawed article that stated that Roman soldiers ONLY wore white tunics in which the most convincing piece of evidence was not even Roman but Ptolemaic Egyptian!
