The Battle of Bovianum between the Romans and Samnites, 305 BCE (Igor Dzis)

submitted by
Art Scavenger

https://media.piefed.social/posts/US/PE/USPEDrQx3XUZtn1.jpeg

The Battle of Bovianum between the Romans and Samnites, 305 BCE (Igor Dzis)
7
22

Log in to comment

Hot Top New Old

Wowsers, that piece really is striking.

I tried using GPT to get more info on the incredibly abundant use of red dye (by the Samnites?), and it seemed to lean towards artistic liberty in this case. But that’s just a possibility, of course. It also could have been an elite unit, making all the red-use more plausible.

 reply
2
Art Scavenger OP

The Samnites are depicted mostly in white. The fellows in red are largely the Romans.

The red dye question is a recurring one in studies of the Roman military, though at this early point it’s probably anachronistic. The question ends up covering several related issues regarding the Roman military, unit differentiation, and uniformity.

Essentially, the two mainstream views are:

  1. Roman troops wore undyed tunics, because that was cheap and affordable.

  2. Roman troops wore red-dyed tunics, because we have evidence of ordinary (not fancy or expensive) red-dyed military tunics and red dye was relatively cheap, allowing for uniformity (which the Romans aesthetically valued).

A third, distinctly minority view being:

  1. Roman troops wore tunics dyed according to their Legion, in the same way (and likely same primary color) that different Legions painted their shields to differentiate themselves from other Legions.

All of that is relevant primarily to the Late Republic and Principate-era professional military, though. While early and mid-Republic Roman troops are often shown in red, as here, this is speculation at best, or else artistic license.

 reply
2
edited

Great answer, thanks!

Have you read the Asterix comics, set around 50BCE? In those, legionaries commonly appear in green tunics fringed with heavy black lines. I guess your answer could apply equally to that situation, but I’m just checking. Writer Goscinny of course took huge liberties with anachronisms, so there’s that, too.

 reply
2
Insert image