Roman helmet surface

[Lupercus]

Fruitbat/Dave

One of the hardest things to do is to "forget" the fashions and thinking of warfare in our modern age, when researching the ancient ways. Wearing of camouflage and purposely obscuring yourself/hiding and misleading your enemy is pretty modern and "new". Keep in mind that brightly-colored, well-made, "fancy" and "show-off" clothing worn on the battlefield is not only a fashion, but a tactic that is in use from as far back as we can tell, until the opening of World War 1. That's what, 6,000 years of people trying to show-off to each other on the battlefield? Yet "Dress" uniforms remain an important aspect of a military's "presence" and "showmanship" (if I can even use such a term, forgive me!) today.

I do recall reading accounts of Roman troops in Hispania using camouflage and conducting guerrilla warfare against other larger and better equipped Roman forces. That being said this is the exception not the rule and was not considered an honorable way of warfare.