Shields?

[Prussian to the Iron]

yes, exactly my point. At the beginning of the Republic Rome had kind of a Milita-system, meaning they had no standing army. The citizens had to arm themselves every single time when war was brought upon them. These citizens were divided in 5 classes, after their assets, because they had to afford their own weapons. Rich = equites, less rich = heavy infantry (3 different classes, triarii, principes, hastati), poor = skirmishers, cannon fodder or didn't have to serve.

Though at the end of the second century BC there were voluntary professional soldiers existed, but still recruitments were made.

104 BC, Marius' reforms: NOW the equipment was given by the state, and the recruits were divided in classes by their experience, not equipment, therefore triarii = badasses, principes = future badasses, hastati = greenhorns.

Therefore, at least to me, it is very clear that until 104 BC no uniform equipment could be found in the Roman army.

ooooohhh......well in that case, i think that the early militia should be non-uniform, but the later army should have uniform equipment and armor.

[Ludens]

ooooohhh......well in that case, i think that the early militia should be non-uniform, but the later army should have uniform equipment and armor.

Didn't Caesar encourage his troops to have highly decorated shields so they would take pride in them? This obsession with uniformity stems from the gunpowder age; I don't think the Romans shared it. They wanted all their soldiers to have about the same equipment, but how they decorated was up to the individuals. It would anyway have added majorly to the cost for arms manufacturers to employ artists for painting designs on every shield (remember, no printing back then).

Off course, nowadays we associated uniformity with professional armies, and since the Roman army was the most professional of its time, people automatically assume they used uniforms as well. Did the other professional armies of the EB era, those of Alexander's successors, insist on an uniform shield design?

So no "Gaius Corvus slept with you mum" enblazing you shield in 3 different languages huh?

[antisocialmunky]

It was probably at the discretion of the local military commanders especially in the post-Marian age when they were paying to equip their men. Probably the rules would also be more lax for highly decorated units and reenlisted veterans. Probably every unit had different shield designs to distinguish from each other. Probably elite units would be painted using more different patterns so they would be recognized when they charged into battle by both your own men and the enemy.

[oudysseos]

A little study and research is always good before trying to criticise the team, eh?

Try;

Coulston, J.C. (ed.). Military Equipment and the Identity of Roman Soldiers: Proceedings of the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference.

Driel-Murray, C. van (ed.) Roman Military Equipment: the Sources of Evidence: Proceedings of the Fifth Roman Military Equipment Conference.

Croom, AT. Roman Clothing and Fashion.

Dawson, M. (ed.) Roman Military Equipment: The Accoutrements of War: Proceedings of the Third Roman Military Equipment Research Seminar.

ARMA: Newsletter of the Roman Military Equipment Conference.

Bishop, M.C. (ed.) Roman Military Equipment: Proceedings of a Seminar held in the Department of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, 21st March, 1983.

Bishop, M.C. and Coulston, J.C.N. Roman Military Equipment, 2nd ed.

Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies.

You also might wanna try Romanarmytalk.com for exhaustive and well referenced discussions on militaria. Here's a quote on the subject:

As for the question of scuta colours and emblems, there are a number of depictions of the latter in various sculptures, but colour is a complete unknown. The only extant artifacts are from rather later than the classical high-empire period most reenactors choose, so aren't ideal evidence. Several of them, particularly the large curved Dura scutum, quite highly decorated with very detailed paintings. Particular colours, whether they had specific meaning, etc. are details we simply don't know. The literary evidence for identifying colours/figures is dubious at best, and unfortunately, I don't think there are more than single examples of clear emblems that could be from a specific Legion. So there's no proper proof even of those- they could just as easily be personal or even artistic license put in by the tombstone sculptor. However, given no better information, most choose to see them as Legio emblems because it is the best information available.

So actually, there is no positive evidence that there were ever 'uniforms' for the Romans, even in much later periods. This is something that we will never know for sure.

Oh, John, the Latin in your joke? It's wrong. Accusative case.

[/Bean\]

Ooh some sources, goodie.

Who was criticising the team?

Oh, and does that mean that the Romans shouldn't be wearing red? I've written this before searching out your sources, oudysseos, so sorry if it does say in there. I was always under the impression the Romans had the red military tunic after they turned into a proffessional army, even if the shields were not red.

Why is it, then, that Romans are always depicted as red? I presume their must be some strong evidence, for they are even red in EB; whose knowledge I trust. Once again if the answer was in one of your sources, oudysseos, I apologise.

[alatar]

If I rember right, there is not much about the colour, and in EB1 as they had to chose a colour, they just went with red.

[oudysseos]

Oh no Bean, you're grand! No need to apologize. It's John who's a bit rude.

If you're interested in tunic colours, go to romanarmytalk.com and do a search. It's amazing how intense those guys get about this stuff, but there'll be lots of sources. And some familiar names as well.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Ooh some sources, goodie.

Who was criticising the team?

I thought, the OP (original poster) ? ... Nevermind.

Oh, and does that mean that the Romans shouldn't be wearing red? I've written this before searching out your sources, oudysseos, so sorry if it does say in there. I was always under the impression the Romans had the red military tunic after they turned into a proffessional army, even if the shields were not red.

Why is it, then, that Romans are always depicted as red? I presume their must be some strong evidence, for they are even red in EB; whose knowledge I trust. Once again if the answer was in one of your sources, oudysseos, I apologise.

It means nothing whatsoever about colour: it explicitly says that anything about colour is dubious at best but basically a big X. For all that is apparently known the Romans dressed up in Pyjama-style Pink.

[antisocialmunky]

Its not really that there isn't evidence. There's friezes depicting roman soldiers. The problem is that no one knows how exactly to intepret it. http://www.larp.com/legioxx/tcolor.html has some(yes its a site for larpers but it links to pictures of friezes). There's ones depicting, red, blue, yellow, white, etc. No one even knows if there was a required tunic color. If we went back in time and asked someone, they might just say 'we wear the colors we like."

However at the end of the day, whether there was or wasn't a required color for tunics, the real 'uniform' of the later legionaires come from similarity of equipment.