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Re: Republican Roman colours

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutum_(shield)#The_Republican_Scutum

You can find out what little is known about Republican Shields here.

dyeing textiles in the Roman Republic?

Does anyone know how common dyed cloth was during the Republic?

I have read that the Oscan tomb paintings at Paestum and Capua show warriors in multi-colored tunics. Some red or white with contrasting colors. Also Etruscan paintings show some colored clothes. What was used for red? Madder? What about other colors? I'm sure purple was costly and restricted to the social elite, but what about cheaper dyes?

Now I'm thinking of Etruscans and Samnites to fight the Romans!

Colours

Thank you for all the information and comments.

I shall defer painting them until I have researched further (couple of days). I have added a splash of paint to each of them, but these will need to be re-painted to my satisfaction before the carnage commences.

I'm favouring dividing them up on three martial lines, as suggested by other posters, resulting in a number of sections of troops, each with a different colour scheme.

In the meantime, I'm painting Strelets medieval cavalry and Caesar Chinese infantry.....

Re: Colours

Anyway there were some particular cases of more common colors that could distinguished somehow the troops.
As in the case of the samnite Linteata legion, that aparently was wearing mostly white linen.

There's an article i italian only but with some illustrations here:

http://www.soldatinionline.it/Articoli/Eserciti/Uniformi/La-Legione-Linteata.html