"Romans in Red?" Topic

As reported in Ancient Warfare magazine (based on a report in Das Spiegel magazine), researchers at the Mannheim Reiss-Engelhorn Musuem have discovered that Roman soldiers wore lots of colors… just not red, as it was considered a "feminine" color.

Do you expect that wargamers will repaint their armies?

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That sounds like bilge!
They would have worn red to hide the blood like everybody else.

Phooey. Well, maybe I'll start painting them in black. I will never paint them in random, multiple colors, even if someone builds a time machine and brings back pictures. They are my troops, so they will be attired according to my orders.

Lets see.

Romans were an empire.

British were an empire

Brits used to wear red

Therefore Romans wear red.

It was a Hollywood convention that has passed down to this day. A number of writers have suggested that the romans wore white, and the officers may have had red cloaks!

Mind you the amount of bright reds that are on the wargames table would have you think that everyone had modern dyes as well! – a rusty brown red would be a more realistic shade – tending to fade pink brown after sun and rain!

Lets see.

Romans were an empire.

British were an empire

Brits used to wear red

Therefore Romans wear red.

Don't forget that all the best Hollywood Romans have been Brits…

We have always painted Romans in red as was done by our fathers and their fathers before them. Painting Romans red is the mos maiorum and what could be more Roman than that?

I have one 15mm army of Marian romans in red. All the rest are in white.

Damon.

My Romans (Early Imperial) are in the lead mountain so I am safe for now. That being said I will still paint them red and hopefully I can get them done before someone writes in a negative modifier to rules for any roman wearing red!

Haven't painted my Romans in red for a long time. Mostly unbleached linen.

My last stand of 6mm romans had assorted color tunics. In retrospect, they are probably TOO colorful, but I like the way it looks. The next ones I do may have more off-white unbleached linen looking stuff as great hall games mentions above, or I may stick with the mixed colors. Who knows.

Doug

A long time ago I was told Imperial Romans actually wore GI green being that it was a cheap readily available dye at the time. Assuming that is true, Roman legionaries in olive drab and chainmail will look pretty "blah". Romans look better in red. It may be ahistorical, but they are my minis and we don't have any solid sources.

Also, Kyle G makes a good point. We must follow the mos maiorum, the way of our paterfamilias. And as good Romans we utterly reject the advice of Gothic barbarians from the north!

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
``To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods,

Verse XXVII, Horatius, Lays of Ancient Rome

Haven't painted my Romans in red for a long time. Mostly unbleached linen.
>>
Was at a Roman reenactment event this past weekend. One of the units,representing Legio XX wore unbleached linen. I heard years ago that the Romans wore OTHER colors as well as red.
As someone said,the red would be a madder,reddish brown red,that would fade with time.
I myself will be joining a Roman unit as well.They wear red,BUT,I will be making a linen tunic for summer wear under my Lorica.

Bob

I paint them various colors but love my red ones the most.

As someone said,the red would be a madder,reddish brown red,that would fade with time.

Yes I would go along with madder, redish brown, brown or unbleached linen. I don't think it would be uniformed…..whatever they had close at hand on campaign.

Did my Republican Romans mainly in unbleached linen.

Romans are red, violets are blue, actually they're lots of colors. Maybe Romans were too?

I think it very much depends on what time period you're talking about. Prior to the Marian reforms, of course, the Republican legionary provided his own kit. Those reforms were also not a cut-and-dried thing, as recruiting amongst the traditional classes continued along with recruiting amongst the Capite Censi. The latter would likely show a degree of uniformity, as the state typically had to provide them with everything. Otherwise, I think a considerable amount of variation would be in evidence until the very end of the Republic.

Here is a link to the article:
link
The legionnaires bit is towards the bottom.

Just as interesting, it mentions that monograms may have been used to some extent. Ancient branding and marketing maybe…

Romans wore read.

Roman soldiers were vegetarians.

THAT is the accepted wisdom.

Don't we have a solid body of pictorial evidence for green tunics?

Y'know, from 'Asterix'?

"In reality, the military probably favored grays and earth tones."

In reality, or probably?

well I'm going to repaint the tunics on mine to look a right old mess because they will fight better -look at the 8th Army in the desert.

We have this idea that clothing and colours for most of history were coarse fabrics and earthen tones with the odd bit of colour reserved for kings and high priests. And this might be true for the poorer classes as they had to make do with the basics.

But anybody with disposable income would have gone out of their way to get a bright coloured fabric to show off. Having a bright red item of clothing was the equivalent of driving around in an expensive BMW or flashing that Gucci badge.

I don't really agree with red being a feminine colour. Red was associated with Mars. Certainly other peoples at the time considered red as a martial colour. Even pink was probably seen as a martial colour, that cultural reference as being a girly colour has only been with us for 100-odd years.

It's an established fact that while the basic Roman equipment was issued as "standard" soldiers went out of their way to decorate it and show their status as veterans. The more bling you had, the bigger the chance you had been on more than one campaign.

Even in today's military veteran soldiers take pride in their faded uniform as compared to a green recruit in a "virgin" uniform.

Therefore I like to give my legionaries a wide range of colours, from unbleached cloth to bright reds, blues and greens. Though the brighter ones would be rarer than others.

Yes, the weight of opinion against red is becoming compelling.

I haven't repainted any existing figures yet, but have to own up I haven't added any units in red tunics for several years, now (so my Roman collection gradually looks less 'red uniformed') …

Phil

Below is a reconstruction of early 3rd Century AD Roman sol;diers from Syria based on paintings at Dura Europos

(link le.ac.uk/ar/stj/dura.htm)

I did my Republican Romans in red and the Latin legions in white, purely for identification purposes on the field. Some of our players are a little challenged when it comes to unit recognition! However, if and when I paint the later legions, I'll do some with red tunics and some with white for the same reason, only this time it will help with civil wars…

My Late Republican legionary rankers are mostly in white and off-white tunics. Officers and some of the 1st cohort legionaries are in red.

The 13th Legion in the HBO/BBC series Rome wore olive green tunics, with red cloaks, and dark blue or black shields:

In combat, when they weren't wearing the cloaks, the combination of the armour and the shields gave them an overall appearance of wearing dark blue or black. If I ever do a Roman army, I'm painting it like that.

The actual evidence for what Romans soldiers wore is a bit – scant

I looked into this in some detail a while back. Apparently many historians reckon the commonest colour Roman soldiers wore on duty was unbleached linen, which is what my little lead legionaries mostly are

There is some evidence supporting red for cloaks and perhaps officer and parade dress

Indeed, Frederick.

I think the one real reference there is to red is about the Praetorian Guard. Which is about the only textual evidence there is for it, IIRC.

My marian romans wear a number of, rather discrete, colours and unbleached linen. Everybody had to supply their own stuff, so I can't see that they'd all have the same colour clothes.

There is a surviving clothing order from Egypt for white woolen tunics, IIRC about 200 of them. Usual dress was wool over linen – depending on the sheep & spinning technique the cloth would not have been particularly hot to wear, more like a very light suit material. Blankets & cloaks would have been 'fulled' like a toga was to make them more felt like.

Somewhere there is supposed to be a passage that indicates Roman Marines' clothing was dyed blue-green with woad, but well processed woad dye makes cloth 'Royal blue' not green.

My Legions are in white or red tunics.I will not change them!!!!! Mike Adams

AndrewGPaul; That must be where I got my inspiration from, green tunics and black plumes and shields!

I will home to tradition; however I will paint up some units in other colors. Used to paint my Praetorians in purple.

Nope.
They will always be red.

I'm not repainting; my troops are keeping their red.

I think this is what you need:
link

If Romans in red were good enough for the illustrators of Asterix, then they are good enough for me.

PLEASE people! Don't use ANYTHING Hollywood makes for reference! As much as I loved that series,I sure wouldn't use it as fact for what Romans actually wore,or how they actually lived!
It is after all,HOLLYWOOD!

Bob

Insomniac, you mean red like this?

Mine wear linen white tunics. Red is just waaay too girly for them.

PLEASE people! Don't use ANYTHING Hollywood makes for reference! As much as I loved that series,I sure wouldn't use it as fact for what Romans actually wore,or how they actually lived!
It is after all,HOLLYWOOD!

So no red, either? De Mille was all about the Roman Red, IIRC.

Didn't the big Hollywood epics, like Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, & The Robe, have Roman soldiers in white with broad red stripes on the sleeves and hem?

I game with Late Romans, so I don't have this problem.

Why do I hear Bugs Bunny singing?

@ Henrix- ok so I might be partially colour blind

That's not an academic article, but a fluff piece for popular consumption.

It states that red was created using the murex snail dye. I thought the snail dye was used for purple or crimson, not red?!?

I'll simply disagree with the museum. I've never been a big fan of the "SHOCK! Scientists discover that everything we thought we new was wrong!" style of journalism or science.

It all depends how much murex you used. That's how one Gospel can say Jesus wore a purple robe, another a scarlet robe without contradiction. The dye was 'purple', the hue was merely red!

Why do I hear Bugs Bunny singing?

I had Chris de Burgh in my head; you've chased him out, and I thank you for that.