THE REAL ROMAN ARMY vrs. the renactments

[Marius_Ursus]

Avete!

Real legionaries were trained killers, barely held in check by the army's strict discipline. They enjoyed going to war and killing people, and looked forward to the pillage and mass rape of the next siege.

Good times...good times...

[John M McDermott]

Terry Nix has some of the "uniforms" used in the movie Gladiator, in case you're interested. They are made from rubber, fiberglass, paper mache and that sort of stuff.

[hoplite14gr]

On rusty armor (and assorted military metals for that reason!)
The Centurion´stave in the begining would ensure that every trooper´s armor would be spotless and later the veterans's experience would keep the good habit of proper maintenance.
Any of the RAT members who "has walked the beat" or have friends who served can assure you that no officer or NCO in any army past or modern would tolerate rust on metals.
And do they have a milion ways making you keep metals spotless :twisted: :twisted:
Kind regards

[Magnus]

Well put matt...and here i was trying not to be uncivilized...lol.

Here's my submission for a "real" pic..if you can ignore the backround. Doing a parade in the pouring rain when your caligae hobnails are driving into your feet isn't fun.

[Narukami]

Take heart Woadwarrior, Hollywood films, even poor ones, do server a purpose. They generate interest in the period depicted and sometimes, perhaps not as often as we might hope or like, but sometimes they bring folks like you to sites like this which give you the resources to dig deeper if you so desire.

That is what brought me here.

I saw a set of toy soldiers inspired by the film Spartacus and questioned if the Roman legions actually had/used drums or if Republican legions wore lion skins.

Spartacus is not authentic or historically accurate. I still enjoy it. As I do the BBC series I Claudius. My disappointment with Gladiator stems from my belief that the director and his crew could have, and should have done better.

The concentration of knowledge and scholarship on this site is truly amazing (as you no doubt have already gathered from the responses above). If Scott and company had spent some time on this site they would, at least, have had the information needed to do a better job.

Who knows, perhaps they did visit, realized how much work it would take to be authentic, and backed away.

At any rate, Woadwarrior, this site can start you on the path to a better understanding of Rome and her Army.

The group here is very active, sometimes feisty, seldom dull and almost always informative.

Good luck. :wink:

Narukami

[Gaius Longius]

Hi Woadwarrior,

Just to let you know that having worn the kit from "Gladiator" as an extra for a beer commercial, I can assure you it was far from cool. It was plastic rubbish.
Along with a number of other re enactors who suffered this indignity I can only say that I still hang my head in shame at the thought of it :oops: and beg the members of the board for absolution.

[Chuck Russell]

http://www.roman-empire.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=82

same question posted on this forum. are we being trolled???

[Arthes]

Greetings,
I can see what Woad Warrior is getting at.....Gladiator if you are not over sure of the authenticity is a good depiction of Roman warfare...Blood, dirt, noise, companionship.
I sometimes think Roman reenactment looks rather tame (looks at her shield sitting three foot away and prepares to hide)...compared to something like the ACWS or the Napoleonic bods with their cannons and guns (I have done a couple of ACWS myself)....but we cannot do much else...unless we bring in special FX, prosthetics and all the paraphanalia of the film world and recreate a real scenario :wink:
Soldiers fighting hour after hour, battle after battle, certainly would not have nice clean bodies, shiny segmentata and clean shields....they would be horrendously battered, bloody and filthy...why do you think the favourite colour was red for a tunic....it didn't show the blood stains so much.... :wink: :wink:
There must have been a joke amongst the legionaries, 'did you dye your tunic with Rowanberries'.......'nah...I used Gallic type 'B''
Virilis is right about that picture, he does look convincing, I must admit..
Egards,
Arthes

[aitor iriarte]

Chuck,
Maybe we should wait and see what Woadwarrior himself has to say about that... 8)

Aitor

[Praefectusclassis]

Yes, I saw that too. Aitor, shall we discuss the trolling-level in Staff please?

[Conal]

What a failure the troll was ....we are ever so polite on this board :lol: brings a tear to your eye !!!

[Celer]

Salve

There are three examples that spring to mind regarding Romans polishing their kit: Josephus mentioning the parade during the seige of Jerusalem. Also the Velsen belt plates had been re-silvered at least two times, and the centurion's Gallic 'F' from Sisak had been resilvered three times. Silver dosen't ware away on its own!

Vale

Celer.

[Tarbicus]

http://www.roman-empire.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=82

same question posted on this forum. are we being trolled???

What is he bangin' on about? Woadwarrior/lastofthespartans, that is.

Gothy is old hat. Applying a Heavy Metal aesthetic to the ancients isn't really very apt, and more a 1990's taste being transplated onto ancient culture. With the new stuff I'm making I'll look positively New Romantic and Duran Duran in their early days, and definitely look like I've made a few denarii on campaign. Get ready to desaturate your monitors! Spinky bright and garish 8)

[tlclark]

Can't wait Jim!

We all know that the Romans had a love of color.

Me, I can't wait until I have a musculata with roses!

Actually, when you think about it EVERY warrior culture has an ornamental refined side.

The samurai and their silk prints,
Knights and chivalry,
18th C. powdered wigs!!

It's only the modern era where we think warriors are brutish, uncultured and dirty.

Travis

[Woadwarrior]

first of all i want to apologize to basically all the renactors, i hope your not offended but what i said. actually i would love to be in one of those renactments, i couldnt tell u how much i would want to do that that would be really awesome just to wear that armor. so anyway im sorry
i hope making this thread topic hasnt already destroyed my reputation on this site because i really like this site, and this is my first thread so.

let me just let u all know that i am quite inforemed about ancient rome.
one more thing thanx alot for all the time all of you put to reply to my post.
back to the topic

your right holly wood is not history and im aware of that, and u made me understand that alittle more.

so having said that
few more questions

i understand obviously and the one thing i dont like about gladiator is hw they didnt throw their pila.
but i thought catapults (onagers) could have been used on field battles
didnt the romans use flaming ammunition, like those terracotta bombs?
what exactly do u mean that the romans horses are to big?

some one said that some roman soldiers used pants and war paint is this true/?
what make up was used on the soldiers in gladiator besides fake blood?

i am now convineced and wont argue any longer on the shiny armor part, but what about the shileds, didnt the ones in gladiator look more realistic? i mean the renactors shields looked so red, like paint red, and it gladiator it looks like leather and wood, what did u make ur shields out of ?

ok so take one roman soldier from the gladiator movie, and tell me what is wrong, and not histrorically accurate with him? why is it not possible that the actual rome could have those kinds of soldiers.

do any of u have any reccomendations for movies that display a historcially accurate rome>?

Do u film those renactments?

ok this is what i think about ur renactment soldiers, they have the right equpiment (gladius pugio) but it well once again hard to explain, it doesn`t look like your helmets could have actully protected u , what i mean is in the gladiator, they put some clothe on the helmet so there head wont be touchiing bare metal, and they did this for comfort, and REAL protection, because this could have made a difference (there helemt) if they lived or dided in a battle, and ur rencaters just did it for show. what i mean is your people dont look like they could be dead in a few hours in a battle. its hard to explaIN i guess i just mean that u dont look like a true disciplined roman, and well of course i wouldnt either , i would put on that armor and laugh, and smile and totally not act like a roman, etc. etc. etc. and its just that in the movies they kind of do act roman and serious.
i would like to see like a clip of ur renacters marching or something
do u ever do fake battles?

so once again whats wrong with gladiator, did they display the city of rome right?
one other thing wrong about the movie though, how did cassius make his voice project so loud over the colloseum?

i have to say though honestly i am greatly disapointed, in just seems now that when i read about a roman battle, now the pic is gonna be in my head of a 100 smiling roman renactors.
instead of thousands and thousands

thanx for reading, u probably think this whole topic is stupid, but dont let this post, judge me right away.
sorry this is so long