The accurate reconstruction and wearing of military costume of an earlier age is a tradition at least as old as ancient Rome itself. Just as the Beefeaters stand guard at the Tower of London in Tudor dress, or the Papal Guard in Renaissance costume at the Vatican, so the Praetorian Guard of Imperial Rome, when not on field. service, carried the early scutum shield used in the Roman Republic centuries before, and other elements of their ceremonial dress undoubtedly harked back to those earlier times.
Today this phenomenon extends far beyond traditional guards or theatrical costumery. Professional interpreters, particularly at historic battlefield and fort sites in the USA and Canada, give visitors a glimpse of soldiers from the past - not only by dressing the part, but firing muskets, performing drill, and very often ‘acting’ the imagined personality of some long-dead soldier.
The vast majority of today's military re-enactors are not paid interpreters, however, but hobbyists from all walks of life who share a common interest in military history. In recent years they have gathered in their thousands to commemorate the anniversaries of famous battles, most notably those of the Napoleonic period, the American Revolution, and the Hnglish and American Civil Wars. When their impressions are historically accurate, these re-enactors can do much to bring to life the periods they represent, not only for the audience but for themselves. Certainly, to re-enact an actual historic march, with the precise equipment carried over the same terrain, can give a historian far more insight into a particular campaign than could ever be gained at home in even the best-equipped study.
Neverthele. ss, the vast majority of these ‘living historians' can contribute very little new to our actual knowledge of military history, other than enlightening spectators and enjoying some. self-gratification during the ‘time machine’ weekends they create for themselves. The periods most of these individuals strive to duplicate are seperated from our own time by only a few centuries at most. Generally speaking, sample collections of original equipment and unifomis used during these times are preserved in museums. Diaries and wartime reminisences from these eras are numerous. Regulations still survive, and thousands of receipts, vouchers, and forms detailing exactly what clothing soldiers were issued, what food they ate and what duties they performed arc preserved in archives. All in all. we have a very good idea of military activities from the past few hundred years without a great need
For reconstruction and experiment - illuminating though such experiments can often prove for the individual reenactor who manages to ‘get inside the shoes’ of his chosen historical subject.
Only when these reconstruction activities are directed to times far more distant do we see a true scientific value - to those periods from which. soldiers’ diaries, printed regulations, and a wealth of physical material simply do not survive. In this respect, the reconstruction of ancient military equipment and experiments with its actual use are making great inroads into our relative ignorance of warfare in the classical world. Experiments made in the last decade have sometimes rendered the dogma of centuries obsolete. The Trireme Trust has answered questions and given us entirely new perspectives on ancient warships and their capabilities. The longdistance marching experiments of Dr. Marcus Junkelmann’s l. A'f’io XXI Rapa. x over the Alps, and similar feats by other Roman reconstruefion groups, have given us a glimpse of the endurance of the Roman soldier and how he must have carried his equipment. Roman saddle reconstructions by Peter Connolly, Dr. Junkelmann and others, and their actual use in simulated campaign and combat conditions, are proving that the Roman cavalry could perfonn admirably all the requirements of the mounted arm long before the so called ‘stirrup revolution’ touted in so many history books; and this writer feels honoured to have played some small part in these experiments.
No other army has captured the imagination so firmly as that of Rome. No army in history can match both its 3
Legio Xllll GMV wiih march packs. These are ba. sed primarily on their depiction on Trajan’s Column. After only brief experimentation, it becomes clear that they cannot be carried high above their heads as the Column shows, but rather against the back. Methods of carrying the shield are discussed in the text.
Longevity and its professionalism. It is no wonder that throughout the ages innumerable would-be ‘Caesars’ have taken the Roman eagle, and other attributes of that great army, for their own. How ironic it is that until the last decades of the 20th century these imitators and admirers never really knew what Roman soldiers actually looked like. True, pioneers in the field like Lindenschmidt and Couissin, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, showed the world reasonably accurate reconstructions of the Roman soldier based on archaeological finds and provincial tombstone reliefs. Unfortunately, however, their work. seems to have been largely ignored, as attested by the bulk of Roman soldier illustrations, film and theatrical depictions drawn almost exclusively from inaccurate interpretation of famous monuments in Rome.
It was largely the work of the late H. Russell Robinson of the Royal Armouries, HM Tower of London, summarised in his monumental volume The Armour of Imperial Rome (1975), that ushered in this ‘new’ era in which the Roman soldier, his armour and equipment are being reappraised for a wide public. (NB: As is now conventional, this book, like most others, follows the classifications of e. g. cuirass and helmet types suggested by H. R. Robinson.) There are now numerous books which give us a glimpse of what the Roman soldier probably looked like, some using actual
Reconstructions, but largely through the medium of colourful artwork.
This small book is the first attempt to make a fairly comprehensive examination of the development of the Roman legionary solely through the employment of actual full-scale reconstructions. This volume lacks the space to discuss in detail all of the experiments conducted and conclusions drawn through the actual use of these reconstructions; but we hope it will nevertheless make a valuable, if necessarily modest contribution to the task of bringing the late, great Roman army back to life.
World History
