Give me hard evidence that Romans looked like this image

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This reminds me for OP's sake, tyrian purple was rare af because it was so expensive and so one could actually rule out some colors used for troops, maybe Praetorians had some purple but certainly never would common troops have purple.

here are some links on roman dyes and clothing and other crap
k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/feb11/purplehistory21011.html

tribunesandtriumphs.org/roman-clothing/colors-of-roman-clothing.htm

Well they didn't just look like that, obviously, their look changed over time

Camilian era Hastatii are so underrated

In fact the little bronze square on a strap is underrated

>Camilian era Hastatii are so underrated
Those who took Veil or those who died as Rome fell to the Gauls.

Hellenistic ones in general tbqh

>one shield also survived
How come from all the hundreds of thousands of shields all over the empire only one survived?

They're made of wood, remember, which doesn't preserve very well under most circumstances. The surviving one was found on Syria, so a pretty dry environment, and it was also broken when they found it, so they had to piece it back together.

This is just me having a guess but those kinds of shields stopped being used midway through the third century, so a lot of them were probably disposed of somehow.

Asterix has their shields colored in blue and their clothes in green.

Thank you for reminding me just how cozy Asterix is.

Check out Sumner, Graham, Roman Military Dress. Strongly disproves red as a main color.

Red appeared in 50s-60s Hollywood movies. In real life, everything which was not a natural color (brownish or off white hue) had to be dyed, which costs money. Soldiers mostly used natural colored textiles.

So brown then?

I think blue was associated with the navy

Mostly white for uniform and discipline purposes

Dyeing was not that expensive provided it was done in the cheaper colors and in bulk. Remember a big part of the doctrine in ancient warfare hinged in being able to quickly tell apart and send orders to units, and they themselves needed to be seen and know their place. Colored clothes, at least partially colored, had to be used as a tool for this, just like crests and other ornaments.

>:
DIS IS JUS THA WHYTE MANN STEELING BLACK BROTHAS HISTORY

ROME WUZ BLACK

You're not funny, stop posting

>I'm a nigger and I got triggered

I'm just tired of unfunny memes "hahahaha lets reply to everyone on the thread with WE WUZ hahaha xDD"

Its fucking annoying and repetitive. It's 13 year old shit. Evolve your shit.

>So many Roman shields made
>This is the last one in existence that we know of

I get that they were made almost entirely of wood but it is still an almost terrifying thing to know that of all the Roman shields this is the last.

More might turn up, particularly in places like Egypt or Turkey

I think that's what I love, the fact that there's almost certainly artefacts, ruins etc. from antiquity that remain buried and preserved somewhere. Guess finding them is the tricky bit.

It's thinner than what Roman shields are usually depicted as

Maybe it's a ceremonial one? Ceremonial stuff tends to survive until today.

It is a third century shield, by that point Roman shields had become a little smaller

How come red was cheaper? It's quite a bright color, after all. Do you know what they'd use to dye stuff red?
I've heard they'd use red for troops, white for COs (as you say, easy to get, but hard to keep clean, so makes sense) and purple for generals.

I don't know about praetorians, but their "uniforms" were at each man's discretion, dunno if they had regulations for color but I guess they had free rein about that too.
Victorious generals (Imperator) and later emperors used purple, though. I think Republican generals used white, dunno if and when they took to wearing purple on campaign.

It doesn't have much to do with brightness, more how the source of the dye is cultivated and the dye itself is produced.

Red, for example, comes from an extremely common herb called madder, so basically anyone could dye their clothes red. For purple, on the other hand, you need to gather and crush tens of thousands of shells from a specific kind of sea snail.

It's also very weirdly shaped, extremely curved. Maybe it's the third century variant, but I can't figure that being used in a testudo, or in an orderly line, for that matter.

Wood is going to warp over the course of thousands of years, even if it doesn't rot

Also it was smashed to pieces when they found it, perhaps it's been put back together incorrectly

I see. Well, makes a lot of sense to me.

Years of whatever that thing was buried under or submurged in might have warped it.

>For purple, on the other hand, you need to gather and crush tens of thousands of shells from a specific kind of sea snail.
You forgot my favorite part where they puss on the extract and boil it to make the dye.