Round shields

[14th Brooklyn]

Hi everyone,

last week on Saturday my minis arrived in the post and I have started with the romans since then. Now the thing I wonder about are the round shields for the standard bearers and the "trumpeters" (I always mess up when it comes to lating spelling so I am bein unscientific here).

Now I could not find anything about these shileds in the books I have looked through and I can not remember any statues, gravestones, collums and so forth showing these type of shields.

Does anyone know of any historic reference to them?

How acurate would it be to depict them with a normal legionary shield or none at all?

THX,

Burkhard

[Centurio Cunibus]

I'm bringing this up again, because I also would like an answer on this one..!

I guess somebody should be able to tell it..

[johnm]

14th Brooklyn said:

Hi everyone,

last week on Saturday my minis arrived in the post and I have started with the romans since then. Now the thing I wonder about are the round shields for the standard bearers and the “trumpeters” (I always mess up when it comes to lating spelling so I am bein unscientific here).

Now I could not find anything about these shileds in the books I have looked through and I can not remember any statues, gravestones, collums and so forth showing these type of shields.

Does anyone know of any historic reference to them?

How acurate would it be to depict them with a normal legionary shield or none at all?

THX,

There are some colour plates in an early Osprey MAA that show round shields being used by standard bearers.John

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[Phil]

Sorry, I must have missed this one first time around...

Roudn shields (parma in Latin I believe) can be seen in numbers on Trajan's column, carried by standard bearers - usually they appear to be 'slung' on the left hand side or tucked under the left arm. They are also said to be shown on panel 'A' of the Cancelleria reliefs, but I'm not convinced - the scene is hardly of a military nature, so I feel it's stretching the point rather. A leather cover, clearly for a parma, was found at Castleford, dated to the Flavian period.

I hope this helps,

Phil

[14th Brooklyn]

Well... I asked on TMP as well so I got a few answers there. So far I have decided to leave the round shileds off. Somehow they did not seem to look right IMHO, so that seemed better to me!

Cheers,

Burkhard

[Phil]

Well, I left them off my plastic legionary command too, so you aren't alone.

This metal guy has one though, and looks fine to me:

http://shop.warlordgames.co.uk/vexillarius-standard-bearer-176-p.asp

Phil

[14th Brooklyn]

Phil,

I thought so, too. The pose on the plastic minis does not seem to lend itself to the round shields and with the ones I have done so far... well I sculpted crocodile hide helmet coves and vests on them and I did not want to mask the later by hanging the shileds on their sides. Some of the non-converted standards and trumpeteers might have them hung on them though.

Cheers,

Burkhard

P.S.: Could you drop me a line @ burkhard(dot)schulze(at)dhc(minus)wargames(dot)de please? I wrote you an eMail a couple of weeks ago, but the adress I still have from the old days when we both moderated the LotR group does not seem to be working anymore.

[Phil]

Crocodile hide armour - now that I really want to see!

I've just sent you an email.

Phil

[Paul@BAM]

Phil have you seen the set in the British Museum?. I do think it is from the Late Imperial period, but then again I might be wrong.

Paul

[Phil]

Yes, sure have. It's been carbon-dated to the Third Century. Don't see any reason why they shouldn't/wouldn't have had a set or two earlier. It'd make awesome 'decoration' for a musician or standard-bearer. I could just imagine the aquilifer of one of the legions based in Egypt wearing it.

Phil