Why do the shirtless units shave their bodies?

[L.C.Cinna]

1.) "Civilized" people who didn't had any contact with Barbarians (others than slaves) expected them to stink like cattle. That's why people who actualy had contact with them reported that they do so to impress their audience.

2.) For most of the times Romans encountered Germans as soldiers only; and soldiers on campaign usually do have an awful stench in all armies and all times. Everyone who as at the army can confirm it that even after a two or three days field excerise where you can't change clothes or wash properly (leave alone a shower) the smell of your clothes becomes so awfull that trying to keep your body clean with a handfull of water becomes somewhat pointless. Pre-industrial armies on campaign often couldn't change clothes for months; one can easly guess how these must have smelled.

That's all complete nonsense. The Romans bathed a lot. They built bathhouses EVERYWHERE even next to most samller camps near Hadrian's wall. They were obsessed with bathing. Like someone said, they needed lots of water. Cologne (CCAA) for example had the same water consumption as today (with much less inhabitants!)


The process is the following:

oiling, scraping, then, hot bath or steam bath or both, then cold bath, normal bath, oiling with some nice smelling oils, done. Why do you think they built those huge baths in Rome and everywhere so that everyone could go?

"Of all the leisure activities, bathing was surely the most important for the greatest number of Romans, since it was part of the daily regimen for men of all classes, and many women as well."

check here, they even show Roman bikinis lol

[Tellos Athenaios]

As O' ETAIROS already mentioned the Greeks and Romans used different albeit similarly effective methods of washing themselves.

Now to get back to the bit about shaving:

a) Not every man develops body hair on the chest;
b) Not every man develops dark black body hair on the chest whilst having a very pale skin;
c) People who go out in the sun without a lot in the way of sun block tend to develop a distinctive tan. And incidentally, sun light tends to 'bleach' hair.

So if the Celts only shaved regularly; then even right in the middle between two 'shaving days' the body hair wouldn't be all that distinctive a feature. It doesn't grow quite as fast as a moustache, you know. (?) Anywho add the already outlined reasoning; plus that of others to the simple fact there's only 1 guy being cloned approximately 240 times the amount of units over on hughe unit sizes... Need one say more?

EDIT: Though I do have to say that in Italy one tends to sweat significantly less than say over here in the Netherlands doing the same work. Regardless of temperature differences (which aren't that significant anyways); since the air is a lot more dry in Italy than it is in the Netherlands.

[konny]

That's all complete nonsense. The Romans bathed a lot.

And what had this to do with soldiers on campaign smelling?

[General Appo]

Yeah, no matter how obsessed the Romans were with bathing it´s not like they built a bathhouse togheter with the daily camp. Near to permanent forts maybe, but do you really think Caesar´s soldiers stopped every day to build a bathhouse?

[Mediolanicus]

About the water usage :

Don't forget that nowadays we turn the tap when we want water.
In roman times, fountains, thermae and aquaducts were running 24/7, regardless of the fact that someone was actually using them or not.
That's why the water usage was so high. They didn't necessarily washed themselves constantly...

[General Appo]

Yeah, but the Romans weren´t stupid, they wouldn´t build 20 extremely hard-built aquaducts if they only needed 10.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Meh. I'd rather smell "like rotten cabbage on a hot day" than build a bath house every day!

[oudysseos]

Sucks to be your girlfriend, then.