Hello everyone,
it's been quite a while since I posted here, but I got a bit back into Playmobil and have some customs to show. This is my humble Roman army so far, I really ought to get me some more legionaries.
They may look like the ordinary figures at first sight, but small changes have been made to make them portray 1st-2nd century AD Roman legionaries.
First up, a general view in battle formation. The first row is armed with pila, and are about to throw them towards the enemy. The second row is armed with a thrusting spear, to provide cover for the first row. I don't quite know to what extent the thrusting spears were used by legionaries (auxilia used these all the time) but they did appear. The centurio, in command of this 'century', stands in the front line as his rank demanded. The life span of a centurio was shortened considerely by this fact.
Inferte signa!
top view of the battle formation
Now we get a look at the figures themselves.
We have the centurio, the optio and the signifer. The centurio's colours have been copied from a Papo figurine. The torso is from the Praetorian special and the arms are from the official signifer. The armourment on the right arm of most of the troops identifies them as extra heavy legionaries. This armourment, which was layered like the lorica segmentata, gave an additional protection to the right arm, which was exposed during fighting since the rest was protected by the large scutum. Initially this was seen as Rome's response to the Dacian falx (a sickle-sword type of weapon) but historical evidence has shown it was used earlier already. It isn't known though weither it was made from metal or leather. (I suppose iron is more likely.)
The optio could be identified by the comb on his helmet. He stood at the back of the formation, keeping his men in line with his stick. (I don't know the correct term, but it's supposed to portray this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Optio.jpg)
The signifer has the lion's fur replaced with a wolf skin. (Lion's fur was reserved for Praetorians.) The wolf's head isn't attached to the helmet but doesn't fall off easily either.
Here he have a look at the different armour types I used. Legionaries rarily looked uniform and all types of armour were used around this period. Both the lorica segmentata (left figure) and the lorica hamata (chainmail, third figure) appear to have been used in the same numbers. When a subharness was worn, the lorica hamata would have given better protection the the segmentata. The third armour is the lorica squamata, a scale-armour. (second figure) This armour was less used than the other's though.
Close-up of the armour. I used the sculpted plate armour arms for this.
here is a picture of the real armour:
And finally, my representation of Iulius Caesar:
More or less inspired by Caesar in the Asterix comics.
This uniform is historically possible though. (This could also be a standard Roman officer.)
Comments are appreciated
Gaetano
Tanotrooper
