09-30-2014, 04:00 AM
Quote:When you say a late first century to early to mid second century impression, bear in mind that that would be anything up to a seventy five year timespan, which would be stretching credibility, as we can date most Roman military kit to within about twenty five years before it was replaced by something more modern. Therefore it would be much better to choose a specific quarter century (so last quarter of the first century, first quarter of the second century, second quarter of the second century.
To give an idea of some of the changes you would see over this period, by the late first century AD, caligae seem to have been dropping out of fashion, to be replaced by the 'fell boot'. Most of the belt fittings which had been common in the mid first century AD had dropped out of use by then too, to be replaced by plates with inlaid geometric designs, which had themselves been replaced by colourful enameled plates by the and of the first quarter of the second century AD. Helmets of the late first century AD were without extra reinforcements, but by early in the second century AD crossed reinforcements were being fitted to helmets and soon after this seems to have become standard. By the second quarter of the second century AD crossed reinforcements were integral to helmet design, with decoration arranged aroun the reinforcements. By the second quarter of the second century AD, Corbridge type segmentata was dropping out of use, and being replaced by Newstead type segmentata. The Pompeii type of sword was probably very old fashioned by then as well, and ring pommel type swords seem to have been very common. In the early second century AD, legionaries seem to have started wearing the calf length trousers known as 'femenalia', but there is no evidence of them wearing these any earlier than this.
You see then, you need to choose a narrower time frame than the one you have suggested and then stick to it.
This thread should have been posted in the Re-enactment and Reconstruction section, by the way.
Crispvs
I've recently been delving into the books again and it seems I still need to learn more than what I thought!
We were initially (at the time of that post) wanting to allow a range of people to join and try to focus on what time frame they wanted to represent and go from there on what they needed, but since then we have decided on solely focusing on Legio XIII Gemina, but we're still unsure which period in that Legion's history we should represent . We were leaning more towards when it was moved to the Rhineland. We're still gathering information but we've been so excited about finally doing this we are not sure what time period to focus on.
Should I put any new posts regarding recruitment and equipment for "newbie" reenactors to Re-enactment and Reconstruction? I was wanting to ask some questions about what equipment should I be looking for in a 79 AD impression. I also wasn't aware of the changes every quarter of a century and had believed those changes were all wrought in the mid to late 2nd century, thank you for correcting my misconceptions!
