Question on tunics?

[lt1956]

Question are the tunics for Pre marian units going to be an off white? I think personally I would prefer red for post marian but for pre I think white is the most accurate? Just curious.

Lt

[Forgus]

I found this on the matter.... not quite what you wanted, but according to this I would chose white.

[I]>>Question; "Many illustrations of Polybian legionaires has their tunics color coordinated with their shields. Is this accurate or just a guessimate on the illustrators part?

[Forgus]

And the answer (I hope it goes through...)

Many illustrations of Polybian legionaires has their tunics color Just guesswork. There's no hard evidence for Polybian tunic colours, either. It is unlikely that they had quite our modern concept of "uniform". Sekunda thinks that 5th-century Roman hoplites had uniform red tunics, but that as the army expanded in the 3rd century they may have already adopted the unbleached off-white wool which is now thought to have been the commonest military tunic colour in the early Imperial period. So you _could_ justify co-ordinating off-white tunics with white shields - as Sekunda does, in his Osprey illustrations. But this is really no more than informed guesswork. Armies on campaign were sometimes supplied wth fresh tunics by allied cities; it is therefore quite possible that they'd finish the war dressed in a different colour to how they started, though undyed material in various shades of off-white is likely in all cases of issued clothing, simply for cheapness.

Officers and cavalry, being of the upper classes, would probably wear bleached white tunics with the purple stripe of "equites" rank. The theory now seems to be that this was a vertical stripe from right shoulder to hem (possibly matched by another one on the left), but I don't know what the evidence for that is.