Did Romans wear red?

[Andrew Beasley]

To my limited knowledge (i.e. site visits, watching the Ermine Street Guard and reading the odd book), the late Roman army was depicted as a block of red dressed troops.  This video details a bit of the history behind this view, source material (sorry) and some possible options:

YouTube Invicta video

Wonder if I can sneak out to see the Danum Shield – been awhile since I’ve visited the area and I’ve not been to the new Doncaster museum despite it being less than an hour away.

[MartinR]

Ah, the good old ‘What colour to paint my Romans” problem.

My chaps are in a range of tunics from dirty unbleached linen, pure white and Hollywood red, depending on unit and troop type. Mind you they do span early Republican to high Imperial 🙂 I think the white tunics look rather smart.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Andrew Beasley]

MartinR wrote:

Ah, the good old ‘What colour to paint my Romans” problem…

Shows my lack in this area as I never knew that was an issue.  I was always both impressed and put off by the large amount of red when watching games and tended to support the more barbaric highly coloured troops.  Maybe I’ll revisit this in 10/15mm for One Hour Wargames and mix it up a bit 🙂

[Alan Hamilton]

When I did my first Roman Legion of Airfix figures each cohort was painted in a different colour – tunic, shields, signum and centurion’s crest.  I lost these in a house move and they were replaced by a legion of Italeri Romans all dressed in red tunics but with different coloured shields for each cohort.  My current legion is dressed in the “classic Hollywood” red.  Why? because the original units were for my grandson’s school project and that was how they were depicted in his school book.  Also the boxes (Warlord) had red shield transfers and it would be churlish not to use them.

That said I have a vexillation in white tunics and blue shields of a different legion.  And some praetorians in black (as in film “Gladiator”) and Cohort in white tunics edged red with red/yellow shields.

My auxiliaries have a different colour for each cohort or ala.

The truth is that we do not know for sure as textiles seldom survive over centuries.  Roman writers were of the upper class or freedmen of upper class Romans writing for their social peers.  Thus they seldom describe the soldiers as everyone knew what they wore as most Romans of the Eques and Senatorial classes served in the Legions.  So I would stick to madder red (cheapest dye of the period), blue (woad), yellow (saffron), green, beige (oak galls), grey (oak gall beige followed by dipping in an iron after bath), false purple (lichen) and off white.  Pliny the Elder says that brighter colours like orange, red and purple were worn by priests and priestesses.
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[hammurabi70]

I have one red legion and one blue.  However, how ‘realistic’ are figures expected to be?  How many Napoleonic figures are fielded in parade ground uniforms and how many in realistic campaign uniforms?  Legions are supposed to be in red so default red it will be!

www.olivercromwell.org; www.battlefieldstrust.com
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[John D Salt]

Not my period, but I did trip over this, which might prove useful to dedicated cloak nerds:

http://www.imperium-romana.org/uploads/5/9/3/3/5933147/wearing-the-cloak.pdf

It seems that that the Romans had an awful lot of words for red, as indeed do we; the red squirrel is orange, red hair is ginger, red berets are maroon, redcoats’ coats are scarlet, a red face is puce, reddle is ochre, and a red apple is russet.

I also suspect that it is not widely appreciated that, before the invention of aniline dyes in the middle of the 19th century, fade-proof and colour-fast dyes that gave bold colours were as rare as hen’s teeth. I would therefore expect reds to be more of the brick-red, russet or ochre tones rather than bright blood-red, scarlet or crimson.

Drifiting somewhat off topic, I found the following piece interesting on colour words in Latin, although here from a 17th century naturalist. It also contains the fascinating snippet that Dulux distinguishes 110 types of beige, so the wargamer should have plenty of options for un-dyed cloth.

The Colours of New Latin

All the best,

John.

[Guy Farrish]

I seem to remember some people here a couple of years ago (?) showing pictures of wool dyed nice bright colours using dyestuffs and methods from the early medieval period.

I’ll have a ferret…

Viking wool

There was another thread but the pictures seem to have disappeared. I thought NCS had some thought on it as well as Ruarigh but my brain cells aren’t what they were.

Fixing and fading may dull them after a while but I’ve felt liberated to be bolder in my pre-19th century colour choices since reading these.

[MartinR]

Being a somewhat lazy painter, I’ve generally found a brown hard nkwash dulls down and dirtiest up the brightest of reds and whites.  I’ve never dared give my Romans _blue_ tunic though, that sounds almost….. Greek:)

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Not Connard Sage]

John D Salt wrote:

I also suspect that it is not widely appreciated that, before the invention of aniline dyes in the middle of the 19th century, fade-proof and colour-fast dyes that gave bold colours were as rare as hen’s teeth.

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The clothing of the higher classes would look mint(ish), those of the middling faded, and everyone else very faded and/or filthy. That’s a generalisation, but also a caution against fielding bright blues, reds and greens. Or even worrying too much about ‘correct’ shades. 😉

Fabric colours also varied according to the strength of the dye (and the fabric, but we’ll go with woolen cloth)  – madder red could be anything from deep pink to dark maroon straight from the vat. Obviously different batches would have different hues, so your red clad legions wouldn’t look very uniform anyway 🙂

 

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Not Connard Sage]

Can’t post PDFs 🙁

 

 

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Sane Max]

what Connard said, with the Caveat that ‘filthy’ is probably not the right way to go – ancient people were not stupid, they knew dirt was bad -they just had few ways of getting rid of it that did not also strip the dye. ‘Drab’ would be better.

 

But who wants to paint armies of Drabness? I have to confess my one Imperial Army is mostly Red – but shades of Russet, with really vibrant red reserved for the bosses.

I may be one of the few people here who don’t have a big Imperial Roman Army. I prefer Marians.

[Not Connard Sage]

Guy Farrish wrote:

I seem to remember some people here a couple of years ago (?) showing pictures of wool dyed nice bright colours using dyestuffs and methods from the early medieval period. I’ll have a ferret… Viking wool There was another thread but the pictures seem to have disappeared. I thought NCS had some thought on it as well as Ruarigh but my brain cells aren’t what they were. Fixing and fading may dull them after a while but I’ve felt liberated to be bolder in my pre-19th century colour choices since reading these.

 

I probably did, and my thoughts are the opposite. However, I’m merely parroting the words of my ex-wife, who was an expert in the subject.

The present Mrs NCS is not an expert in the field of textiles, but she does make exceedingly good cakes

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Who Asked This Joker]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

Fabric colours also varied according to the strength of the dye (and the fabric, but we’ll go with woolen cloth)  – madder red could be anything from deep pink to dark maroon straight from the vat. Obviously different batches would have different hues, so your red clad legions wouldn’t look very uniform anyway

Earthy colors would be inexpensive.  They would not be stark even brand new.  Madder red and pastel blue if you wanted some color on your tunic.  Bleached tan if it was not dyed.  Purple was very expensive to obtain which is why it associated with (rich) Senators and Emperors.

Colors would indeed vary by region.  Color tone is subject to the eye of the creator as well as the availability of materials to make the color.  This sort of thing existed right up through WW2.   Canadian uniforms, for example, were supposed to be the same color as other British infantry uniforms.

My 2 cents.

 

John

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

[Alan Hamilton]

I am reading Graham Sumner’s “Roman Military Dress” and at pp 112-118 this topic is discussed in a very readable way.  I commend the book to you for its in depth descriptions of tunics, colours, dyeing process etc.

In short, yes they did and also white as well as a whole range of other colours many sporting contrasting clavi.  Maybe red in battle as it was the colour of Mars and was also quite a cheap dye.  Remember that unbleached wool varies from off white to dark brown depending on the colour of the animal.

[Author]

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