"National Roman Legion"

[Gaius_Calvus]

Well, I'll throw in my 2 cents' worth on this, by stating that like almost everything else I believe about this hobby, I line up squarely with Matt Amt.

The idea of a "single, large legion" or formation for "big events" sounds good, but I think we are all thinking about events that rarely exist, at least here in the good ol' US of A.

As the leader of Legio XI in Atlanta, Georgia, our group and its members conduct 90% of our participation at LOCAL events. LOCAL museums arrange for us to be present at openings; we visit LOCAL schools at least once-a-month during the school year; etc.

When we do conduct a "multi-legion" event, again, 90% of the time it's with our brothers from Legio VI FFC, headed by my great friend Rusty Myers. For these, Rusty and I invariably argue over "who has to be centurio," since both of us would rather be a ranker. What we normally do is if I am the "host" legion, Rusty is the "commander of troops" and vice-versa.

About ONE time a year, usually Lafe, our guys are able to go to an event that features more than Legio XI/Legio VI. Once. So, this thread seems to be discussing a situation in which we need to re-arrange what we've already done so that one time a year we can all be part of a "national," uniform legion. OK, run that by me one more time? :roll:

So, back to what I do 90% of the time. When we conduct events and or/school visits, the idea is to educate the "public" about the Roman Army. The Roman Army had more than legionaries from one legion in it, and it was in existence for more than one century.

A school visit is normally 2 guys, and sometimes I'll go as a legionary ca. 43 A.D., sometimes as a 1st Century A.D. auxiliary, sometimes as a centurio, sometimes a legionary from another part of the 1st Century, depending on the audience and the age. See, I like variety and since the hobby is supposed to be a hobby -- and therefore fun for me -- then I like to vary what I wear when I go out and play dress-up.

When we do a museum gig, I'll have 8-10 guys. I'll usually be there as a centurio, we'll (soon) have a signifer with a signum, some legionaries in a variety of kits, and 2-3 auxiliaries doing COH I BAT impressions. For the public, this gives them more of an overall impression of what the Roman Army was like, and gives us many, many more opportunities to discuss a myriad of aspects of that Army.

Finally, once a guy builds a legionary impression, many of our folks want to do something else. I have a couple of guys who don't want to be legionaries at all -- they want to be auxiliaries (one is even doing an aux cav as well as an aux infantry). I am personally working on a Caesarian-era Republican legionary. One of my guys has a legionary impression and working on a signifer impression. Am I going to tell them no? Of course not. This hobby is about having fun, not conforming to one particular person's vision of the Roman Army, since I doubt that any one person's vision would be truly definitive, anyway.

If we wanted to have anything "national," however, then my vote would be for a set of accuracy standards as well as a set of drill commands in latin. My vote for this would therefore be those of Legio XX, since Matt Amt's site is where everyone goes, anyway. How many times do we see a newbie on RAT ask "How do you..." and someone sends him to the Legio XX site? Gads, it's impossible to count.

So, while the whole "national legion" idea kind of mildly interests me, it does so more from a standards/accuracy standpoint as opposed to an "every 8 men is a contubernium with x, y, z" standpoint. Great for that one time a year we do Lafe, but pretty useless for me the other 15 or so events I do in the course of a year, and a dis-service to the local audience I serve.

Regards,

Edge