MAXIMVS PROJECTVS

[Stuart]

I'm looking for some help and a bit of advice here in an arena I know very little about! I'm thinking ahead to my next project and Romans have been badgering away at me for some time, I have two small(ish) ventures for Summer next year and I'm currently doing the Sudan but they won't take me too long as I've not alot left to do for them. I'm wanting to start something large and so have finally decided to take the Roman plunge and buy the Legions of Rome deal (my Xmas present from the missus! ), but apart from only owning one book, (Adrian Goldsworthy - The Complete Roman army, don't know how good it is as I've never read anything to compare it with!) I know very little. Sorry for waffling on, I'd like to pick the brains of all the Roman buffs out there for a good book that kinda has"everything under one roof" about the roman army (or is that a big ask?), I usually research before buying and painting but as I should get this (hopefully) in the next few weeks, can't wait!

Also - on a side note, I always see Romans in the traditional red colour and I'm aware of other colours used but would you get say Regular troops in red, Aux' in blue, praetorians in Black(?) all fighting under the same head honcho or would it be an all blue force, all red etc.

Any advice is much appreciated and sorry again for going on a bit

[mikeland]

This book is pretty great:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Army-Grea ... 102&sr=8-1

Your colours sound good. Some people go for a linen or unbleached cloth look for the rank and file, and me and Biggus are of the Auxillaries in green school of though, this has two advantages, 1 it leaves you free to do marines in blue at a later date if you wish and 2 they end up lookin a bit like Asterix Romans

[Phil]

That is a very big ask. Goldsworthy's 'The Complete Roman Army' is good, but has significant lacunae. Don't, whatever you do, fall for Dando-Collins' 'Legions of Rome' - it's awful - he mixes his legion histories up, and is rather apt to make up what he doesn't (and can't) know. In general, if a book tells a complete story, when it comes to Romans, it's probably too good to be true. Don't bother with WRG's 'Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome' either - it, and the evidence it was based on, is at least 30 years old - a lot has happened in Roman history and archaeology since then.

Goldsworthy's 'The Roman Army at War 100 BC - AD 200' is good, and fills in many of the gaps in his 'Complete Roman Army'. It's a more 'academic' treatment of some of the same ground, and more besides, to a greater depth (at a cost of far less pretty pictures!). Yann Le Bohec's 'The Imperial Roman Army' fills in more gaps. 'The Roman Cavalry' by Dixon and Southern is worth getting. The auxilia are crying out for a good, modern, treatment. The 'old favourite' - very dated, but still pretty good, is GL Cheeseman's 'The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army'.

The above should give you a pretty decent overview of the Early Imperial Roman army, and are all fairly readily available.

On your side note. Tunic colours are a thorny issue. White (or off-white) or red are the main choices, and are the directions the evidence seems to point - perhaps! Black was associated with death and bad luck, and seems unlikely for that reason alone. Green or blue - who knows? As for whether troops wore 'uniform' colours, there is no evidence. There's not much evidence to suggest that they even used particular shield designs within particular units - just a sideways hint in a battle narrative. The same goes for much of the 'received wisdom' - things like transverse crests on centurions' helmets (which we all seem ot accpet as 'gospel truth') are based on the flimsiest of evidence - in the latter case, little more than a single funerary monument.

One of the difficulties in doing 'ancients' is the evidence or, rather, the lack thereof. Working out how the Roman army operated is a bit like trying to work out what a jigsaw picture looks like when you only have a tiny fraction of the pieces, and only a few of them fit each other.

I hope this helps,
Phil

[Stuart]

@Mikeland - thanks for the link, I'm sure I've seen that book on one of the threads on here actually but didn't put two and two together. Good idea about the colour of the Aux', might have to pinch that, I hadn't thought of the Marines but now.........Mmmmmmmm! I'm already trying to convince the boss to let me have the Archers as well

@Phil - Sorry thought it might be a big ask , but wow, that list of books was great, might take me till Christmas to decide and after the last lot of Physics and History books I got recently I might not be allowed any more till they're done, I'm so under the thumb

[Biggus Dickus]

Hi Stuart, welcome to all things Roman!!!!
Have to agree with what everyone has said so far. Can only back it up!
Romans had all colours available to them, we always think of them in Red...not sure why, is this a hang over from Sparta? There are no real hard and fast answers.....likely that there would have been a lot of off white tunics, but then it is also possible each Cohort had it's own colour.....The jury is out on all of this....so that does leave you free to do what you want.
I started with the Roman legionary set..I did them in Red..but then I started palying around with various ideas..mainly owing to the fact that i wanted my different units to stand out....so i adopted a theatrical approach in order that I could have Black Pratorians (I doubt they wore black but it looks nice and they stand out), Blue marines.... I know it was stated in ancient times by one of the historians that "The marines tunics were the colour of the sea" Obviously that is open to debate...so that left Green for Auxiliaries...then i went off white for legionaries....of course marines were Auxiliaries too.
My personal view point is that I think all units looked largely the same...Auxiliaries perhaps armed with older out of date, used/worn , or cheaper to produce equipment.....but largely all much the same. Perhaps the only way of telling them apart were their shields...but maybe that's a falsehood too. At Present so little evidence exists that no one can say for sure....which is nice as everyone is right!

As for books...well I have the dando collins...it's interesting....don't know how factual it is, it fills in a lot blanks.....but is it real?
I have Some lovely books by Peter Conolly, Rome and Greece at war is a favourite....Invisible Officer will likely point you in the direction of a few good books.
I'd quite like to see what he suggests myself!
Definitely do the Marines...maybe have a bash at converting them from Auxiliaries like i did and perhaps while you are there...get another box of Auxiliaries and convert to Archers!...You get more of both that way and they are plastic!
What ever you do, we want to see some pictures!

[carvel2]

Great news ..will put my two pennneth in later : )

[Stuart]

@BD- Thanks for the input, good to know I should be able to have free reign with colour choice, I really can't wait to get hold of these, (order placed this morning!) and will put pic's up once I've started but probably won't be for a few weeks as I'm not allowed them till Xmas
Maybe will have a go at conversions, my skills at this are raw at best but if you don't try you don't learn (or is that "Do or do not, there is no try").

[Biggus Dickus]

@BD- Thanks for the input, good to know I should be able to have free reign with colour choice, I really can't wait to get hold of these, (order placed this morning!) and will put pic's up once I've started but probably won't be for a few weeks as I'm not allowed them till Xmas
Maybe will have a go at conversions, my skills at this are raw at best but if you don't try you don't learn (or is that "Do or do not, there is no try").

Mmmmm, Right, you are, destroy the celts we must

[NORTIVS MAXIMVS]

Hi All

I have a mo, so I thought I would chip in ...

Firstly, I second ( ) the recomendation for the Osprey volume, which I first cited here:

http://www.warlordgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3561

It usefully brings together a lot of their content and probably saves some cash on buying the various volumes separately.

As Phil says (and read what Phil writes carefully – he knows stuff ) avoid the Dando-Collins volume - I have it, and apart from anything else it's a terrible piece of book design (just compare it to the production values exhibited by the Osprey volume, above).

Tunic colour ... well I'm not sure 'free reign' is quite the way forward - maybe re-read Phil's contribution ... certain dyes were readily available and cheap (at the cheap end of the scale is madder, the most widely available) others less so (at the expensive end of the scale is violet, made from secretions by whelks found on parts of the Mediterranean coast).

You cannot go wrong with yellowish-white to brownish-white for un-dyed wool.

Roman Military Dress by Graham Sumner has an entire section on the Roman clothing industry, and draws from a range of evidence (written records, archaeological, painting, sculptural ...)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Military-Dress-Graham-Sumner/dp/0752445766/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322569850&sr=8-1

According to Sumner there isn't much evidence for green (which would have required dying cloth twice, making it more expensive – bear in mind the soldiers had to pay for their tunics): once with yellow (weld or perhaps saffron), and once with blue (woad or indigo).

Blue (woad or indigo) seems a little more likely, but for cloaks rather than tunics.

According to Sumner, yellow is an unlikely martial colour because of its association with a traditional bridal veil ... though I have used it for auxiliary infantry and cavalry scarves.

He concludes that soldiers generally wore off-white or red tunics, likely to be in a range of shades depending on age and climate, and the wealth of the person wearing the garment.

So ... the fastness of the dye (resistance to washing and to sunlight) would inevitably result in a range of shades ... for reds I use a range from scarlet through crimson to brownish. I tend to dress my centurions and optios in red and the legionaries in white or off-white ... though I have one century on the bench at the moment where the legionaries are in red, while the centurion and optio are in dark crimson ... I have done a century of auxiliary infantry in green though (painted before I got Sumner's book). They dyed their cloth twice, obviously

As usual more on my blog, including a short reading list

Cheers
Paul

[Stuart]

@NM - Sorry didn't mean to give the impression I would start painting all sorts of colours, more that I could get away with Reds , off whites and blues all in the same force, shame about the black though as I think the Praetorians would look quite menacing! I've had to re-read Phils comments alot just to note down the book list alone, it's good to be spoilt for choice! I know I've got a long learning process ahead of me and it's good to get such good advice to keep me on the straight and narrow!
Oh and I knew I'd seen the Osprey book somewhere

Thanks