"Roman shield designs second Punic war" Topic

I'm working on a Roman army for Zama and I'm trying to figure out how the shields should look. A number of shield transfer manufacturers would have me believe that every shield had a little design on it. This is almost certainly not true for this period. However, I'm also not sure I believe that none of the shields had little designs on them. Help a guy out?

As far as I know there is very little evidence for early Roman shields having any design, except for the Tarragona relief of Minerva with a wolf-head scutum boss that Sekunda uses in his Osprey illustrations (sculpture at link ). Livy 27.47 has Hasdrubal identifying new Roman troops from their "old shields which he had not seen before", but that need not mean that they had distinctive legionary designs: in fact, if you could tell one legion from another by its design, that would be a far more obvious thing to mention.

That some decorated their shields individually is possible, there's an anecdote in Frontinus (a much later author):

"Scipio Africanus, noticing the shield of a certain soldier rather elaborately decorated, said he didn't wonder the man had adopted it with such care, seeing that he put more trust in it than in his sword."

Manufacturers of transfers, however, want to sell transfers :-)

It seems to me that our little men have much nicer equipment than their historical counterparts. This is fine. We like a beautiful table. However, most Roman shields of Republican times were probably painted (if at all) a solid color, After weeks in the field this natural die would fade considerably. I paint mine a very dull red with a bronze boss. That's it! Centurions, tribunes, and, of course, the légate or consul, would have the money and servants who would allow them to maintain a much nicer shield. Cheers!

Prior to the adoption of the eagle as the standard for all legions there were several other animal standards used. These include a wolf, boar and others. While it is not mentioned it is possible that these may have been used as a possible shield design for the legion that used that animal as its standard.

If you can find a copy of Wrg Armies and Enemies covering the war, they should have the designs in them

When did the legions adopt legion devices? Perhaps it was after Marius when commoners could join up and shields were provided by the State rather than the family of the soldier.

The earliest picture of a shield device that could be a legion device is in the Fish Mosaic from the Cave of the Fates, Sanctuary of Fortune Primigenia, Palestrina – picture – the shield is hanging on the pillar near the top of the picture. This may date to around 100 BC, though I am not sure if the date is completely certain.

Thanks, and a white shield at that.

The eagle was adopted as the standard for all legions by Marius. See the section on "Symbols of Republican Legions" at
link Pliny the elder mentions five different animals used as standards – eagle, horse, wolf, boar, and minotaur.