09-21-2007, 06:49 PM
Hello Chris
As Cesar correctly points out if anyone has equipped their Optio with a black and white crest then the limit of their research has been looking at pictures or seeing in person the Optio of the Ermine Street Guard and not checking the ancient sources! That also goes for equiping Optios in a mail shirt with shoulder doubling, brown pteryges, a satchel for wax tablets and a metal knobbed staff!
There is as yet sadly no evidence for black and white crests in the Roman period.
Red or white crests exist in Imperial Roman art and Arrian mentions cavalrymen in the sports events wearing yellowish crests while Centurions are supposed to have had silvered crests which could also imply horse or feathered crests of that colour. That is probably about all there is.
Graham.
As Cesar correctly points out if anyone has equipped their Optio with a black and white crest then the limit of their research has been looking at pictures or seeing in person the Optio of the Ermine Street Guard and not checking the ancient sources! That also goes for equiping Optios in a mail shirt with shoulder doubling, brown pteryges, a satchel for wax tablets and a metal knobbed staff!
There is as yet sadly no evidence for black and white crests in the Roman period.
Red or white crests exist in Imperial Roman art and Arrian mentions cavalrymen in the sports events wearing yellowish crests while Centurions are supposed to have had silvered crests which could also imply horse or feathered crests of that colour. That is probably about all there is.
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
