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.

[Crispvs]

You may be thinking of Pompey's soldiers making basketwork covers for their helmets whilst waiting to spring an ambush. This in itself suggests that their helmets were likely to betray their presence if not covered up, again supporting the idea that they were shiny.

Crispvs

[M. Demetrius]

IIRC, as it's been a year or so since I read Gallic Wars/Civil War, Pompey ordered the wicker basket covers put on the helmets because Caesar had a great number of slingers, ergo, the wood was to provide "exoskeleton" padded armor for the helmets. To cover the shininess of a helmet, all that's needed is a hooded cloak. That covers all the armor, shiny or not, until one chooses to show it, doesn't it?

Imagine the effect: A column of men is marching along, knowing that the enemy is somewhere. Suddenly, from a line of brush, the enemy throws back their cloaks, and is suddenly a shining army of attackers, springing from ambush, sun glinting everywhere. Seconds before, dull colored cloaks hidden in the tree line transform into shouting ambushers.

Seems plausible to this old man. Caesar was not above an ambush when it suited his purpose, though usually not in the way I just described.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Yes, that is what i recall from this instance as well.

[jkaler48]

The wicker covers were to protect the soldiers in a siege attack from the great numbers of rocks being thrown down upon them from the ramparts.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, I seem to recall Caesars troops were under seige at Dhyiacum??? Shit there goes my dyslexia again..... :evil:

[M. Demetrius]

Shit there goes...

You mean "Sith there goes...", don't you? :lol: :lol:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Aye, of coarse....lol

[M. Demetrius]

Agnostic dyslexic insomniac = someone who lies awake at night wondering if he'll ever know whether there is a dog.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

:lol:

[jkaler48]

Here is a link to a couple of quotes regarding wicker helmet covers:
http://www.ludusmilitis.org/index.php?topic=61.0

[Pict]

I stumbled across this today and thought it might add more fuel to this fire: http://www.legionten.org/Studies/LXFstu ... onary.html
Now if you ever wondered what Starship captain Jean-Luc Picard would look as a legionary have a shufty.

Personally, while I'm not a fan of the rusty look it might really have made sense on long campaigns or when the legion was away from the amenities of the fort.

An interesting hypothesis.

Cheers,
Pict

[Matthew Amt]

I stumbled across this today and thought it might add more fuel to this fire: http://www.legionten.org/Studies/LXFstu ... onary.html
Now if you ever wondered what Starship captain Jean-Luc Picard would look as a legionary have a shufty.

Personally, while I'm not a fan of the rusty look it might really have made sense on long campaigns or when the legion was away from the amenities of the fort.

An interesting hypothesis.

Cheers,
Pict

But a completely baseless one. We've been over the "campaign abuse" question and the "blackened/russeted armor" issue many times, and they defy *all* the evidence that we have, as well as real "practicality" (not that modern ideas of practicality would mean much to the ancients!). As for general wear and tear, most of us already have plenty of that, and very little of it shows from any distance!

We've already discussed simple ways to keep armor clean, using nothing but dirt or ashes. It seems a safe assumption that any veterans would know how to keep their armor free of rust. If you can keep your armor clean for a day or two, what does it matter if the campaign is a week or 6 months? Even in garrison, you'd be cleaning it every day. Same deal on the march.

Seems odd that the author of that page would put such effort into damaging his armor, loudly documenting the process, and then claim, "I am not saying that this was the standard look of a legionary". Pictures speak louder than words, amice! While I certainly agree with him that most of our reconstructions are too thick and heavy (not just armor!), I'm not following his logic about iron working and color because of the use of charcoal. *Any* forging of iron makes the metal dark and/or blackened, but scouring the final outer surfaces to a bright finish was simply part of the process.

Vale,

Matthew

[M. Demetrius]

*Any* forging of iron makes the metal dark and/or blackened

Yep. Propane, wood fire, oxyacetylene, charcoal--it's not the heating agent that causes the color change, it's just the heat itself. That's how you watch a knife blade or other part to know when the temperature is up enough to hold an edge, for example. Then you polish that color off to nice shine, as needed.

[Crispvs]

The author of that web page does not know nearly as much as he thinks he does and is wrong on a number of points. He mentions for instance that there is no evidence for curved scuta in the first and second centuries AD. I can think of several shield bosses which would prove him wrong. Again looking at his description of Roman iron as being 50% iron and 50% charcoal, well I am not a blacksmith, but would the resultant material actually hold together without dropping into little pieces all over the place? Also, he takes a very authoritive sounding statement on the thickness of Roman segmentata plates but I was under the impression that most surviving plates were sufficiently oxidised that it was impossible to accurately determine their original thickness. Thus we can see that he actually knows far less about all this than he thinks he does and so any statement he makes about the 'campaign' look of armour should be treated with great caution.

In any case, isn't there a statement by Caesar which suggests that his soldiers wore protective covers over their armour most of the time?

Crispvs