12-02-2006, 07:47 PM
Salvete!
I was reading a biography of Septimius Severus by Spielvogel recently and it contains a picture for the arch of Severus. Caption says it's the left relief on the side of the Forum. It shows soldiers leaving a camp, a battle and Severus holding a speech in front of his troops.
I found the representation of equipment and troops very interesting and there would be some things I would like to discuss.
Maybe someone has a picture of the relief I'm talking about so it would be easier to discuss things?
What I noticed is the variety of troops and equipment. especially the 3 types of shields represented made me think.
There is one type of soldiers visible which I would say are auxiliaries>
They carry oval scuta, long hamatae, bracae.pretty much like the aux. on Traian's column
the 2nd type is already a bit hard to identify>
they look like the auxiliaries but carry hexagonal shields. thought of Praetorians at first but they look much more like the auxiliaries especially because of the short tunics and the bracae. the legionaries all wear longer tunics.
and now finally
the legionaries
there are 2 types visible>
one type is wearing the segmentata and oval scuta while the other is wearing hamatae and rectangular scuta. My question now is: might it be possible that this was made to represent Septimius western troops from the Danubian frontier and the Syrian legions?
There have no fragments of segmentatae been found so far in the East (of course I know that the absence of evidence doesn't mean it wasn't used there but still) and the 2nd point is the use of oval scuta. I guess because they were mainly used by the auxiliaries during earlier times and started to replace the rectangulars completely later on. So my guess here is that the western legions might have started to change to oval scuta earlier because they were prefered by the "natives" there and because of the different kind of warfare along the western borders (small scale actions along the limes and all that stuff which imho calls for the use of oval scuta and spathae as the soldiers are more versatile and more usefull in smaller operations because they can fight as individuals much better than with the earlier equipment).
So is it possible that this was really done to make a clear differentiation between western and eastern troops?
I was reading a biography of Septimius Severus by Spielvogel recently and it contains a picture for the arch of Severus. Caption says it's the left relief on the side of the Forum. It shows soldiers leaving a camp, a battle and Severus holding a speech in front of his troops.
I found the representation of equipment and troops very interesting and there would be some things I would like to discuss.
Maybe someone has a picture of the relief I'm talking about so it would be easier to discuss things?
What I noticed is the variety of troops and equipment. especially the 3 types of shields represented made me think.
There is one type of soldiers visible which I would say are auxiliaries>
They carry oval scuta, long hamatae, bracae.pretty much like the aux. on Traian's column
the 2nd type is already a bit hard to identify>
they look like the auxiliaries but carry hexagonal shields. thought of Praetorians at first but they look much more like the auxiliaries especially because of the short tunics and the bracae. the legionaries all wear longer tunics.
and now finally
the legionaries
there are 2 types visible>
one type is wearing the segmentata and oval scuta while the other is wearing hamatae and rectangular scuta. My question now is: might it be possible that this was made to represent Septimius western troops from the Danubian frontier and the Syrian legions?
There have no fragments of segmentatae been found so far in the East (of course I know that the absence of evidence doesn't mean it wasn't used there but still) and the 2nd point is the use of oval scuta. I guess because they were mainly used by the auxiliaries during earlier times and started to replace the rectangulars completely later on. So my guess here is that the western legions might have started to change to oval scuta earlier because they were prefered by the "natives" there and because of the different kind of warfare along the western borders (small scale actions along the limes and all that stuff which imho calls for the use of oval scuta and spathae as the soldiers are more versatile and more usefull in smaller operations because they can fight as individuals much better than with the earlier equipment).
So is it possible that this was really done to make a clear differentiation between western and eastern troops?
RESTITVTOR LIBERTATIS ET ROMANAE RELIGIONIS
DEDITICIVS MINERVAE ET MVSARVM
[Micha F.]
DEDITICIVS MINERVAE ET MVSARVM
[Micha F.]
