Has anyone here ever been to a genuine roman themed festival, like medieval fairs?

maybe you could larp as a 1920's Jew bootlegger
or part of a 1980's central park wolfpack

There was a show of roman cavalry but I missed it. I only saw some smaller breeds of horses. The owners a 3 guys who like to larp as romans and specifically bought smaller breeds to make sure they looked like the historical part. Horses were very small in antiquity compared to today.

There were also a multitude of vendors. I only managed to photograph one, because frankly, only this old lady was worth it. Like any other medieval fair, they sold shit like necklaces and genuine bone shit.

This vendor sold roasted nuts. She used the recipes described by Apicius book from the 1st century AD.

The first event of they day was a mock fight between the Roman Legions (3 reenactor groups. 2 from germany and 1 from Hungary) and the Dacians (all from Hungary).
The fight went badly for the romans and they lost round one. I missed round 2 but the romans won round 2. I will post now the other still images of this heroic defeat.
Note how the romans use a mixture of Chain (Lorica Hamata) and Lamellar (Lorica Segmentata) Armor.
The latter was only worn by more experienced and wealthy Soldiers.
Your inital kit as Legionary was funded by the state/general on a loan. You had to pay it all back in full. Sometimes raw recruits went the first year with meagre/ no pay and did the odd jobs around camp to scrape by. Being a roman Soldier only really made you money when you stopped being an FNG. Nobody knows if the roman soldiers had a specific term for FNG.

The roman Legions had a multitude of different roles/ positions. You had specific hunters, scribes, engineers and other Jobs that needed to be done by the Soldiers in your collunm.
The smalles unit of Soldiers was the contrabinium. These men of the same Squad/contrabinium had one junior centurion as commander, shared a tent and fullfilled a specific role in their cohort.

The life of a Legionary was really harsh and even the smallest offence was punished with severity.
Each Legion was able to make camp every night, erect a defensible perimeter and continue marching the next day. After the Marian reforms the roman army had a smaller baggage train than contemporary armies: The Soldiers carried many of the essential items with them and were nicknamed: Marian Mules.

The things often found on a baggage train: Slaves, spare parts for weapons (the Pilum had 3 different parts and were used by the Legions like Grenades today. Each part was stored seperately and was used to refurbish spent/ damaged spears), camp followers, non essential food, spare wood and spare horses. There was more but I only mentioned the things the guide specifically recounted.

Like I mentioned, the Dacians won round 1. There was another mock fight later in the day but I was visiting the Gladiators so I missed round 2. Rome won round 2.

The Dacian reenactors were nice people. They only spoke hungarian and allowed to pose for a picture while they dressed you in Dacian garb. I held a small Falx.
After the ordeal I was offered booze by the Dacians. I think it was home made schnaps.

Next I visitied the roman camp.
It was very tidy and featured the top of the line weaponry.
The thing on the table is a Manuballista. I was mainly used in Sieges to knock out enemy Vehicle crews and supress enemies so the Soldiers could advance safely. A projectile from this machine could penetrate chainmail from a distance up to 300 meters.
It is basically handheld scorpion.

Here another shot from the camps. White tents were for people from a higher status. Equites, People of note or more experienced Soldiers. Brown tents were the rank and file Soldiers.

The next thing I saw were 3 women from italy performing a a roman dance. The dance was nice, the women were ugly.

After that I visitied the Villa Urbana. The large reconstructed House in the centre of the complex. it houses common rooms, a public bath and several craft rooms.

To ensure that a Villa was always the right temperature, a hollow floor was employed. Thorugh ovens heat was poured beneath the floor and kept the House and the bath warm during all seasons.

This is the first section of the bath. Here moderately warm water was kept in a small pool.

In this room guests would rest from their bath and prepare for the second, far hotter bath.

This is the final room in the thermae. The decor is hand drawn and it took the curators 1 whole year to get every detail right.

The Villa Urbana also had reconstructed graffiti. Sadly I forgot to take a picture but the most funny was: 'Gaius, I will stab you in the dick if you lose the next fight.'
The text was written next to crudely drawn Gladiators.

The next few rooms were the residence of a smaller offical. The Governor's palace is still an archeological dig and is presumed to be double the size of the Villa Urbana.
I took the pictures near the end of the festival so there are no more pestering bystanders running into my Photographs.

The common room. For offical meals with guests/ clients of the magistrate.

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There was also a small room in the Villa were you could drink genuine roman herb wine(mulsum) and eat roman bread. I drank too much of the former and the latter was flour mixed with water and herbs.
The bread was then fried in a pan and not baked.

The most common roman meal was pulsum.
A flour stew mixed with vegetables and sometimes meat. Romans rarely ate meat and poured garrum, a fish sauce, over everything like ketchup.

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Any questions so far?

This is a forge/ market stand that belonged to guy named Lucius. He was tailor/ cloth peddler in carnuntum. His house was also reconstructed as well as his herb garden.

This is Lucius' house.
There was guy in there Larping as his slave. He explained his joba, told general tales about Slavery and so on.
Most romans did not own a slave. The middle class romans owned one, maybe two. The richer ones had a staff of Slaves and officials had state owned slaves.
The Super rich owned Armies of slaves that worked fields in Egypt/ Italy as well as mines in Dacia, Illyria and Spain.

Even if a slave was freed by his master, he was still the clinet of his former master. That client/patron relationship was very important in roman society and was usually followed to the letter until the collapse of the western empire.

A small plaque that contains some history of Carnuntum.

Next I watched the Gladiators.
The fights were not premeditated but every reenactor used only wooden weapons. (duh)
There were also no fatalities since killing Gladiators was extra costly. Most Hosts of games only rented Gladiators from a school and had to pay a hefty fine if one of the Gladiators bit the dust.
It was far cehaper to slaughter criminals and christians in the arena.

There were several pairs. All fights were very tame and very boring. The commentator was also a woman who had no gift for showmanshit and ruined a potentially good atmosphere with borish commentary.
The only good fight were the two Gladiatrices. Unlike the men, who fought rather methodically and restrained, the two women whacked at each other, cursed and committed several fouls.
Yes, to ancient romans Gladiator fights were serious business and they had their own sperg crowd that were fanatic fans.
Similar to D&D nerds today.

Note the lictors who were in the collumn.
Every event in rome had an offical consult the Auspices if the gods were pleased with the proceedings.

This is the front of the Museum. At this point I was very drunk. I forgot to take fotographs from the exhibition. It was great though. Definitely check it out if you ever make it there.

Here you see 3 roman officialls again consulting the Auspices.
The final event for the day was the payment to the Soldiers. Even this event needed sanction by the gods. The old prayers were often in a crude and impossible latin and each prayer had to be redone if it was interrupted or the speaker screwed up.
Basically if you were in the crowd and started yelling something, the Guy performing the ceremony had to start over.

Every adult roman male could perform a religious ceremony. You had to do several things: Cloak your head, because you can never speak uncloaked to the gods.
Wear a toga.
Sacrifice an acceptable offering in a brazier.
Walk several times around the brazier and make sure all evil spirits are gone.
Consult the Auspices. You look through a crude twig, like a bishop's cane, in the sky for birds.
If you see birds in your selected parts of the sky, the gods like you and proceed.
Say the prayers and don't fuck up.
You're done.

Overly complicated and the romans took this procedures very very seriously.

That's all folks!
I hope you enjoy my dump.
There will be a late antiquity festival later this year. If I visit it, I will dump pictures here again.

No and i never will.
All the fun is in europe

comfy

Well looks like I have a solid reason to visit Austria now.

The closest I've ever been to a Medieval reenactment was Pennsic because I live 40 minutes south of the site in Pittsburgh, but the SCA feels more like a subculture than a reeinactment community. I'd love to go to some of the Viking fairs in Europe someday though.

Sounds like a fun day out

is there any of this shit going on in Europe in mid october to mid december? It doesn't necessarily need to be Roman, really any sort of historical fair. I'm going travelling and wouldn't mind paying a good one a visit.

>mid october to mid december
There are dime a dozen Medieval fairs in Europe the whole year.
The main season is from june to Early October. beware though, most of these fairs are just rip offs aimed at families with little kids.

Specifically for you I can only recommend the Medieval Christmas Market in Vienna. It is held on the grounds of the Austrian Military Museum.
You can visit the market on Dec. 1st to Dec 3rd this year. Other than that better visit Europe in the summer. The good ones are all in June or July.

>There will be a late antiquity festival later this year. If I visit it, I will dump pictures here again.

Fucking do it. Late Antiquity is far more interesting to me.