Does anybody know if the back side of roman shields were painted? and what colour? I found numerous pics of the front side but only the osprey drawings show some colour of the inner side of the shields (same colour as the front)
roman shields
- Thread starter vergilius
- Start date
Help Support planetFigure:
Bad91Fellow
A Fixture
In my book about the roman army by Peter Connolly the shields (of the time of Caesar and of the later Empire) are painted in the same colour as the front, too.
Lennart
Lennart
Einion
A Fixture
The inner face of some Roman shields is depicted as being brown or brownish - that could be painted or dyed leather/fabric, or the natural colour of linen or hemp.
I don't think the back of a legionary shield would typically be red or blue if the face of the shield were those colours, as it could easily be seen as a waste of expensive pigment. However Connolly's reconstruction of the scutum from Duro Europos, 1st c. AD, is red on the back (actually scarlet, or orange-red) and many scuta in reentactment groups are painted red front and back.
Einion
I don't think the back of a legionary shield would typically be red or blue if the face of the shield were those colours, as it could easily be seen as a waste of expensive pigment. However Connolly's reconstruction of the scutum from Duro Europos, 1st c. AD, is red on the back (actually scarlet, or orange-red) and many scuta in reentactment groups are painted red front and back.
Einion
