Misunderstood History - Did Roman Legions Really Wear Red?

it's extremely common to see roman soldiers wearing red in all forms of media from movies to shows games comics halloween costumes and even reenactments the visual style is so ingrained in our own understanding that even derivative works use red to draw the connection to the ancient imperial power but as is often the case with such things that just seem so obvious it's useful to take a step back for a second and question our base assumptions how much of this romans and red phenomenon is real and how much did we simply invent over time as a standard convention for how we think the roman should look in this video we will seek to explore the answers to these questions [Music] it takes a lot of reading to make these documentaries this leaves me with little time to actually get through my growing library or explore other subjects of interest i'm sure in your own busy life it can be tough to do all the reading you'd like to thankfully our sponsor blinkist has a solution blinkist is an app that takes thousands of non-fiction books and uses experts to distill them down to their most essential ideas for you to easily digest with text or audio in just 15 minutes it's a great tool for getting up to speed on a wide range of subjects and deciding which ones you definitely want to read in full as an example this episode had me going down the rabbit hole of learning how ancient people made their clothes which in turn led me to the fantastic series a matter of taste which covers how things like fashion have changed over time sucked in i then had a listen to queen of fashion what marie antoinette wore to the revolution while running errands without blinkist there's no way i would have explored these topics it's honestly been a really helpful app that i'd highly recommend you can check it out right now by clicking the link in the description below to get a 7 day free trial in addition the first 100 people will get 25 off a full membership enjoy i figured we'd start by taking a look at some common examples from pop culture where we see the romans in red a favorite of mine is rome total war 1 and 2 which depicts the legions as follows see also rise son of rome and assassin's creed origins for shows see hbo's rome stars as spartacus and netflix's barbarians for movies see gladiator and any of the older sword and sandals films but this isn't just contemporary either check out this painting from the 1800s and this one from the 1600s so yeah we've been making romance red for quite a while now let's now dive into our sources to get to the root of all this as a heads up in this section of the video i'll be throwing a lot of raw data at you but rest assured that in the following sections i'll walk you through a more structured summary okay let's go perhaps the best starting point will be to look at the artistic depictions made by the romans themselves we have a lot of these in the form of statues gravestones reliefs and frescoes unfortunately few have kept their colors yet some still do at pompeii for instance we find a fresco of a roman soldier at the house of valerius rufus he appears to wear a light red tunic and a white and yellow cloak meanwhile in palestrina near rome we find an incredibly detailed mosaic depicting life in 1st century egypt towards the bottom are a cluster of soldiers notice the white and salmon tunics the yellow cloaks and the yellow brown shields other artistic depictions we found seem to follow a similar trend a particularly insightful source in these matters is the site of dura europas a 3rd century roman hellenic parthian settlement along the euphrates it was fantastically preserved by its dry environment and has yielded over twelve thousand artifacts and several painted rooms this fresco is particularly informative it shows the roman tribune julius torrentius making a sacrifice alongside some officers and soldiers their tunics are white their cloaks white or yellow and their belts red or brown in terms of actual gear a couple shields have been found at the same site including the shattered remains of a scutum here it is reconstructed and there you have it roman red but one data point does not make a trend what about all the other scutums that remain yeah about that these things were made of wood and leather and as such don't preserve well beyond their small metal bits and pieces to my knowledge only two other roman shields have been found one from egypt is a republican-era infantry shield and another from the denim fort in doncaster is an early imperial auxiliary man's shield neither have had their colors preserved perhaps our most complete visual evidence of shields comes from the noticia dignitatum which describes army units from the late empire these are extremely varied with all sorts of designs and colors admittedly though this is quite late in the roman army's timeline and doesn't necessarily tell us much about earlier periods as you can see the remaining material evidence we have is quite scattered and not particularly conclusive so what about our written record well luckily we do have some sources that provide a bit more context for starters we have this broad claim made by marshall in one of his epigrams quote rome wears more brown galls red and boys and soldiers like this color red it's a bit vague for sure but not a bad start meanwhile from the historia augusta on the life of claudius we get a far more specific reference the line in question states quote to this claudius you will give us salary two red military tunics each year end quote this is great as it confirms the presence of such a thing as a red tunic however an important caveat here is that claudius is a high ranking officer and thus his gear is not necessarily representative of the rank-and-file troops for a better look at the broader appearance of the army we can turn to tacitus who writes the following about roman troops in the 1st century a.d the eagles of four legions were at the head of the line while the colors of four other legions were to be seen on either side then came the standards of 12 troops of cavalry and after them foot and horse next marched 34 cohorts distinguished by the names of their countries or by their arms before the eagles marched the prefix of camp the tribunes and the chief centurions dressed in white the other centurions with polished arms and decorations gleaming marched each with a sentry the common soldier's medals and collars were likewise bright and shining it was an imposing sight and an army which deserved a better emperor than vitellius two important things here obviously the first is the mention that legions can be distinguished by their colors though color of what isn't clear are we talking tunics shields flags or a combination of all three the second point is the mention of the white tunic worn by the command structure all the way down to the senior centurion this leaves a gap however for the common foot soldier for this last piece of the puzzle though we can turn to the pay receipt of a roman soldier at masada the papyrus fragment basically records how much of his ordinary pay will be deducted to cover mandatory expenses like food and clothes the last line item mentions a tunica alba or white tunic again however this is but one small data point beyond this we have some scattered sources talking about colors sported by various figures almost exclusively these are men in high ranking positions at kenai for instance the roman commander reportedly raised a scarlet tunic above his tent to signal battle while at first alice caesar raised a purple tunic elsewhere leaders are said to don all kinds of colored cloaks as symbols of their status there are a ton more historical snippets which i could potentially trot out and which we could examine one at a time however at this point i'd like to transition over to the summary portion of the video where we can discuss the conclusions historians have drawn from all this data about roman outfits because we're dealing with 1 000 years of history we will break things down by era rome's earliest history during the monarchy and early republic had the least amount of standardization soldiers were organized roughly by age and property class and thus came to battle dressed according to their means so if there is a connection between wealth and color we should probably spend a moment to talk about this it turns out that the study of ancient pigments has actually seen a lot of academic interest raging far more broadly than just the garb of soldiers for the purposes of this video we can just dip our toes in by taking a look at the method of production in question this began by first producing the raw materials wool yarn and dye which would then be mixed together in a vat sometimes with a fixative the desired hue of the textile came from using one or more pigments these would have been extracted from some organic or mineral source through crushing drying boiling or other means roots of the mater plant for instance have long been used to produce a shade of the color red it was simple and cheap to make we know that the romans used it widely and that even british soldiers used it as late as the 1800s however matter was usually a lighter tone and could be considered a lower tier product to get a richer crimson red that popped and didn't fade as easily you would turn to the kermis dye it was derived from the dried bodies of insects which can be found on mediterranean oak trees other red dyes could be achieved using mixes with mercury and lead which produce brilliant and long-lasting colors yellow could be made from weld saffron pomegranate rind turmeric and a number of flowering plants blue could come from snails mollusks woad and various indigo-bearing plants green could come from a small selection of lichen and plants but were mostly a mix of blues and yellows meanwhile browns and blacks often came from various trees nuts and metals and lastly we would be remiss not to mention purple it could also come from a variety of individual sources or mixtures however one of the most prized versions were the royal purple variants which were extremely rich in color and long lasting the tyrion dye came from a family of sea snail with each creature yielding but a few drops of usable material it was a highly labor intensive process often involving multiple cycles of coloration the end result varied from place to place but generally appeared as a dark red or violet which could even border on black once you had your wool and pigments mixed you would then lay it out to dry sometimes repeating the process several times over finally the threads would be woven into the desired article of clothing obviously the price would go up as you used rare colors and higher thread counts thus the poor ranks of the early roman army likely wore plain tunics of undyed grey beige and brown those with a bit more wealth might add a few threads of color to the tunic in the form of patterning or hemming while others might try and get the whole thing done in one of the cheaper hues the further up the ranks you went the more elaborate the coloring to get a sense of this we can take a look at the frescoes of the neighboring etruscans and samnites who would have dressed relatively similarly thus in this early period we could have expected to see soldiers donning a range of tunic designs without much in the way of uniformity the same can be said when it came to cloaks and shields admittedly many historians speculate that there may have been some tendency towards using the color red the first argument is an economic one as the moder dye we mentioned previously was quite cheap to produce the second argument for the use of red comes from the color's religious association with the important war god mars the third argument is that red simply appears to be a martial color seen across many cultures owing to its striking visual nature and connection to blood as we get into the republican era things start to change however the roman army grew increasingly organized with more matured standards and practices yet still the legions were not a permanent professional force armies would be routinely raised and disbanded which meant that they remained rather hodge podge in nature without a truly unified espritiko that you'd see in later years troops therefore would largely not have adopted a widespread uniform at the start of the period for instance soldiers still provided much of their own gear which was of a cottage industry nature but by the end of the period though as armies served for longer periods of time and further afield their kits started to be mass produced and provided for them thus the look of these republican-era soldiers was slowly transitioning over the years broadly speaking though it seems that there emerged some sort of expectation that soldiers would have tunics for various occasions it appears for instance that soldiers had a casual fatigue for everyday use a formal tunic for special events like reviews religious ceremonies and triumphs and a battle tunic for combat yet still i say this with much hesitancy it's not clear how standard this was nor what sorts of colors would be accepted for each situation some have speculated that the casual fatigues were likely the simplest with undyed or cheaply dyed wool this seems quite reasonable as they would see the most wear and tear and would therefore require the most cleaning or replacement when it comes to the formal tunic some evidence points to it being white this relates to ideas of purity as with the use of the white toga condita used by candidates running for office however a white outfit also was a sign of some wealth as achieving that specific look was not the natural state of clothing for one the tunic would have to be cleaned quite regularly the routine process would be a simple water rinse and dry however a deeper clean involved a fulling method where stale urine and sulfur would be used to clean or bleach clothes often this was carried out by slaves in large tubs within special facilities as far as we can tell it did not produce stinky clothes and the items that came out were considered to be in better condition than when they went in pure white was therefore accepted as a high quality tunic and may even have been worn by officers for their special dinner attire as for the third form of tunic used in battle we can't say much else some think that it may have also been white for the reasons stated or hues of red but ultimately little can be said definitively on top of these tunics might be worn a sagum or thick woolen cloak fastened around the neck with a brooch colors likely varied widely but would have followed the same economic and cultural principles we laid out a special subtype the peludamentum was a cloak worn by officers as a point of distinction these would be more striking visually and seem to have been white blue scarlet crimson and purple and finally we have the coloration of the shield on this i don't have much to say other than to point out that we know that there were a variety of different shield pattern designs there appears to have been at least some amount of uniformity on the unit or legion level but we don't know exactly how that applied to colors and emblems nor how strictly it was followed finally we can now turn to the imperial era where we see the highest degree of standardization with the roman army finally becoming a true professional force here unit identity and rank became much more important and well defined to the point that in the late empire you get contemporary authors chronicling all the various legionary forces and their standards on top of this there are macro level economic and political forces that have changed roman industry for instance becomes quite advanced with the mass production of goods and the use of intricate logistical systems often set up specifically for the military items which were once produced as one-offs from shops now came delivered as large shipments of a standard design in addition you also had imperial control and regulation of key sectors and goods things like the production of tyrion die was now tightly controlled in addition to policing who could wear what all this essentially to say that we have more reason to believe that roman armies of this period had a greater degree of uniformity in their appearance for example vegeta's mentions that naval forces were blue tunics but again it's not clear to what extent this was true across all forces much is up for debate some have argued though that if tunics were indeed mass produced then they likely would have been white or slightly off-white red for cheap production and cleaning later on we see these same tunics accented by bands of various kinds which may have been used as an easy way to designate rank when it comes to shield designs we can expect them to be subject to the same trends however it's a bit more likely that these would have been standardized owing to just how visible they were in battle if you're going to pick something to align on focusing on the shield just brings the most bang for your buck this idea is reinforced by a passage from vegeta's who writes about the imperial army saying quote lest the soldiers in the confusion of battle should be separated from their comrades every cohort had its shields painted in a manner peculiar to itself the name of each soldier was also written on a shield together with the number of the cohort and century to which he belonged so from this we know or at least can claim to know that every cohort of 480 men painted their shields in a similar way to distinguish themselves and each century of 80 within the cohort added further identifiers this apparent standardization can actually be exploited when we hear of soldiers infiltrating enemy lines simply by wearing some of their own shields while these snippets are certainly useful unfortunately our ancient authors don't share much in terms of actual colors i know it's quite common to see certain legions associated with colors like red blue and purple or to see auxiliaries associated with green but to my knowledge i don't think any of this is grounded in any actual primary sources and has instead grown out of stacked assumptions over the years to the point where it seems authoritative in reality we just don't know much beyond a few of the shields found at duropas or in our copies of the noticia dignitatum which may or may not be representative of other time periods if we were to speculate here we'd likely just be rehashing the same socioeconomic discussions about pigments from before that is to say we should likely expect a range of colors to be present with maybe a slight preference for red i could go on and on with speculation but unfortunately this is really where the historical understanding on the subject is at it's a big case of we don't really know for sure yet while this might seem unsatisfactory for me it's quite useful for resetting my preconceptions one thing for sure is that we should not expect to walk out of a time machine and see a roman army fully decked out in bright red everything as sometimes gets depicted in pop culture instead we should be ready to see a range of colors with all sorts of idiosyncrasies in the gear perhaps this one soldier can't afford to get his tunic cleaned and it's a bit browner than the rest maybe this man over here has a washed out hand-me-down maybe that officer there has a particular association with a religious cult that favors green and dresses accordingly if you take anything away from this video i'd say it's the understanding that reality is far messier than we'd like it to be and you shouldn't be afraid to question long-standing assumptions that would say otherwise anyways that's about it for my long-winded discussion of a tiny but fascinating subject i hope you enjoyed it and learned a thing or two a big thanks to the patrons for funding the channel and to the researchers writers and artists who made this episode possible be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these related videos see you in the next one you

Channel: Invicta

Views: 545,656

Keywords: roman army, did the roman army wear red, did roman soldiers wear red, did romans wear, did romans wear red, roman legions, roman army documentary, roman history, roman history documentary, ancient purple dye, tyrian purple, romans in red, misunderstood moments in history, misunderstood history, fact or fiction, roman republic, roman empire, invicta, history, military history

Id: sUwfuc2hN3g

Length: 19min 40sec (1180 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021

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[u/BuddhistSagan]

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