dyeing linen

[Graham Sumner]

The same was done with the centurion Marcus Caelius (website: http://www.livius.org ). According to that reconstruction the tunic is green. Now would you consider this to be a "wrong" reconstruction, wishful thinking?

With regards to the tombstone my opinion may be clouded by another example of a reconstructed coloured tombstone displayed in a museum. This shows an Optio coloured in a blue tunic with a brown cloak. This has been taken as 'evidence' of tunic colours and posted as such on a website. Unfortunately I know for a fact that in this particular case the colours were simply made up by the museum staff for presentation, on the grounds that Roman tombstones would have been coloured.

I can not be certain but I believe in the example you refer to above, the colours for the reconstruction were based on those discovered on the tombstone of Silius preserved in a watercolour painting made at the time of discovery (see M. Junkelmann 1992). This showed the cavalryman's attendant dressed like an auxiliary from Trajan's column but with his mail shirt/leather jerkin whatever, coloured green and with a red cloak.

However I could be wrong and the example you mention may indeed have been based on original paint surviving on the monument. The versions I have seen do not mention what the reconstruction is based on. If it is based on original paint from this monument then in that case we have a senior officer wearing what is considered to be by textile experts a rare and expensive colour. By shade of green I mean a very pale green effect might be achieved by single dyeing but the darker greens which is what you see in these cases and in this example would appear to have been at least double dyed and therefore more expensive. This is certainly something I would include in future editions of RMD but I would want more verification than the fact that it appears in a museum or on a website first.

Getting back to Augustus and the green in his reconstruction, that is also the colour of the cuirass in the famous Nile Palestrina mosaic worn by a figure identified as Octavian-Augustus (For a reconstruction see Imperial Roman Naval Forces by R, D'Amato Osprey 2009.)

D'Amato also shows another example of a reconstructed tombstone of one more centurion in his 'Arms and Armour of the Imperial Roman Soldier' 2009. Fig 302 shows Lucius Valerius Albinus from Cohors I Thracum dressed in red paenula and green tunic but D'Amato says the reconstruction was based on that of Silius. Which is why I did not include it as 'evidence' myself in my RMD.

A reconstruction of M. Caelius also appears in Arms and Armour. It was made in the 1880's by Hottenroth and showed the tunic as white with a brown cuirass. D'Amato always believed Hottenroth based his coloured reconstructions on surviving paint since lost but on what he based this on I do not know.

Graham.