traits of a Roman legionary

[John M McDermott]

So you think only tall people would have made it in?
True, they were required to meet certain criteria, but also they would need numbers to meet emergencies as in the case of the second punic wars.
And short people are quite capable of out-shining taller people in any area, so height would not be a necessity. You just have to beat it into their heads to make them understand it, which takes longer due to the requirement to bring it down to a normal altitude.....

Well, this makes sense to us, but we are dealing with the Romans. There is this thing floating around about the height requirement. So, what do we do, just ignore it and say it wasn't so, or come up with other objectively viewable data to the contrary?